


Physician, Heal Thyself

by darwinzfinchez



Series: Surgeon AU [1]
Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Agron is a Surgeon, Alternate Universe - Hospital (kinda), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood, CPR, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Medical Procedures, Slow Burn, Step-parents, The gang are all doctors, like the slowest of burns, lots of blood, mentions of divorce
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-22 21:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 31,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11388549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darwinzfinchez/pseuds/darwinzfinchez
Summary: For a trainee surgeon, death is a part of life - sometimes in surgery you do everything right and the patient still dies. But when Agron's brother dies suddenly after intervening in a bar fight, it knocks him sideways, and as he's trying to get his life back on track, he also has to deal with his guilt-stricken estranged father trying to re establish contact, and going about it with all the bull-headed tenacity and lack of social graces that he passed on to Agron. A new relationship with one of the new doctors is the absolute last thing he needs, but unfortunately Nasir seems to be exactly Agron's typeSkip to the end if you need more details on the Major Character Death/ Graphic Violence/ Blood/ Lots of blood tags





	1. Duro

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this thing for literally years, so even though I don't normally start posting until the whole thing's finished, I'm just going to put this out there anyway, and if I never finish I'll just put up what I've got. I decided there needed to be a fic where the gladiators are surgeons, since they're the only people in modern society who get to open up people's body cavities and not go to prison. Also I know a few people who work in healthcare, and I think it's really interesting. I also think after having a friend sob on my shoulder through her first year of practicing medicine, I have some idea of what it might be like to be a doctor.
> 
> Caveat: I have a lot of friends and family members who work in healthcare, and I talk to them about their work, and I've supplemented what they've told me with internet research and watching documentaries, but I don't have that much direct experience of the health service, and I'm not medical myself so apologies for any inaccuracies. 
> 
> This fic is set in Scotland, to make it easier for myself. It's going to be loooong, and Nasir's going to take a while to show up, but he'll arrive, don't worry!
> 
> As always, let me know if I've forgotten any tags or warnings

Duro got up. “I’ll get the next one in.” he said. “What do you want?”

“Does this mean you’re actually going to get people what they want, and not just get Tennant’s for everyone?”

“Nope. Don’t know why I bothered, really. Tennant’s for all!” He raised his fists above his head in a victorious pose, and Agron wondered if he was drunk enough that Agron needed to take him home. If it was anyone else, it probably would mean that, but it was Duro, so…

He turned back to Duro’s friend, Diona.

“Where did you say you were from again?” he asked.

They were slightly distracted by a bit of pushing and shoving up at the bar, as a couple of guys got into a heated argument, shouting loud enough to drown out the music, but not clearly enough for Agron to have the faintest idea what they were talking about. They ignored it, until the sound of breaking glass made them all whip their heads round.

“Aw, shit, has someone got a broken bottle now?” Diona said. She sounded resigned, the way that only people who have spent a lot of time in dodgy pubs can sound resigned to broken bottles flying around. But then one of the others – Kai, Agron think Duro said his name was – stood up slightly, craning his neck to see over the crowd.

“Duro.” he said softly, and Agron saw him. The other guy, Kai, would later tell him that he saw Duro try to get between the guy with the bottle and the guy whose face he was aiming it at, and saw the wild swing of the guy’s arm send the broken end of the bottle deep into the side of Duro’s neck. All Agron saw was Duro swaying, his hand drifting upwards, to the gigantic, jagged wound that had just appeared there. How could his shoulder already be soaked with blood? He collapsed onto his knees, and then onto his side, his head hitting a bar stool on the way down, but by that time Agron was already out of his seat.

“Duro?” he said calmly, authoritatively, as he strode over to the gap that had suddenly opened up as people backed away. Other people would tell Agron later that the guy with the bottle had dropped it and run away when Duro went down, but Agron acquired tunnel vision, and didn’t notice. He knelt down next to Duro and clamped a hand to the side of his neck, blood immediately coating his hand and wrist. Normally when he touched someone who was bleeding, he was wearing sterile gloves. It was so much worse with your bare hand – warmer and stickier and realer. He grabbed Duro’s shoulder, above his collarbone, and squeezed with his other hand.

“Duro! Duro, can you hear me?”

Duro’s eyelashes fluttered, but his eyes didn’t open, and Agron cursed internally.

“Can I get a towel or something please?” he shouted, trying to turn Duro over without removing his gore-soaked hand from his neck. People arrived – Kai and Diona – and helped to turn him onto his back. Something dangled over the side of the bar, and he grabbed at it. It was a tea towel. He pressed it to the wound and grabbed the first hand he could get, which turned out to be Diona’s.

“Hold that.” he said. “Duro! Duro, man, if you can hear me, squeeze my fingers.” Nothing. Not even a twitch. And, on looking at his neck, he saw that blood was seeping out of the wound around the towel.

“Not like that!” he snapped at Diona. “Hold it like you mean it.” With a small squeak, she pressed more firmly, and the towel almost soaked through. She went to remove it.

“No! Don’t take it off, put another one on top. Can I get another towel please?”

“Is he going to be OK?” she whispered, and Agron did not answer because, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew, and he did not want to. Kai passed Diona another towel and, with shaking hands, she pressed it down over the first one.

“I’m calling an ambulance.” Kai said, and leaned over the bar to ask the girl for the pub’s exact address. Agron pressed down, really fucking hard, on Duro’s eyebrow.

“Duro! Duro, open your eyes. Duro, I swear to fucking God, if you do not open your fucking eyes!”  
He did not open his fucking eyes. Agron, working on autopilot, tilted Duro’s head back, opened his mouth and looked inside for an airway obstruction, before feeling his neck, on the opposite side to the wound, for a pulse. He put his cheek close to Duro’s mouth, feeling for breath on his face as he watched his chest for movement. Nothing. No pulse.

“Has he got a pulse?” Kai asked.

“Give me a minute.” Agron muttered, even though he knew that the guidelines were to not feel for a pulse for more than ten seconds, and that he, after so many years of experience, could locate one in less than a second. Come on, he thought. Give me something, just give me one little flicker. Nope.

With a shaking voice, Diona asked for another towel, and someone handed her one. Agron reached down and shoved Duro’s shirt up, feeling with the tips of his fingers in the spot where he knew his heart was, having practiced cardiac examination on him many times while he was at medical school.

“What are you doing?” Diona asked.

“Feeling for his heart.” Agron said. Nothing.

“Hi. I’m the first aider.” A new voice said. Agron looked up. Pretty girl, probably twenty, hair in a ponytail. She looked terrified.

“Surgeon.” Agron said absently. “I’ve resuscitated more people than you’ve had hot dinners.”

“Oh.” the girl said.

“Make sure she doesn’t run out of towels.” Agron said, trying to indicate Diona with his head, without lifting it from hovering over Duro’s face. “Right, he’s in cardiac arrest, I’m going to start chest compressions.”

Kai relayed this into the phone, as Agron positioned himself on his knees, hovering over his brother’s chest. He took a split second to steel himself before pressing the heel of his hand into Duro’s breastbone and pushing down, hard.

Agron was a big, strong guy, and his technique for chest compressions was fairly efficient, since he’d had a fair bit of practice. But every patient – every ribcage – was different, and it normally took a couple of compressions to get the depth right. Normally it was too shallow at first, but an ominous crack! told Agron he’d been overenthusiastic.

“Was that his ribs?” Diona asked, in a small voice.

“He won’t die of broken ribs.” the first aider girl said. She was crouching next to Agron, watching what he was doing. She probably had a couple of hours of CPR training under her belt, and Agron, who usually had absolute confidence in his chest compressing skills, wished suddenly that he had someone more qualified to tell him if the depth was right or not.

“How big was the wound?” Kai asked.

“It was…” Agron shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “Probably about ten centimetres long, a couple of centimetres wide. Left side of the neck, right… right about where the big blood vessels are.” He realised that he had stopped compressing, and started again.

“You OK? Not getting too tired?”

“Nope. I’ll let you know when I am. You know how to do compressions properly, right?”

“Think so.”

“Good.”

He did eventually let the girl take over compressions, and asked Diona to do a couple of rescue breaths. It wasn’t in the official guidelines for the public any more – mostly because it made people come over all squeamish and not do CPR – but Duro was going a funny colour and Agron didn’t like it. He’d never actually given anyone mouth to mouth – he was usually careful to only be around when someone went into cardiac arrest if there was an oxygen supply and mask around that he could use instead – and didn’t want to start with his brother.

The ambulance crew arrived, stuck Duro on a stretcher, and allowed Agron to ride with them to the hospital mostly because he climbed into the ambulance without asking, and persuading him to get out would take time that Duro didn’t have. At the hospital, he was barred from entering the resuscitation room, and a nurse put him in a free consultation room. The doctors and nurses standing around in the middle of the department, talking, all stared at him as he was led past. Suddenly exhausted, he sat down on one of the chairs and stared at the floor, refusing to let himself think about Duro, and the kind of state he would be in.

   
There had been a long line of deaths in the resus room, which always made Crixus irritable. The usual ones were bad enough – the ones who shouldn’t even have been there. Two 95 year old ladies had come in on the same day, both with catastrophic intracranial events, one with an actual anticipatory care plan already fucking in place, who wanted to die in her home, not in the hospital. But the previous day a nine year old had died after being hit by a car. He was dead when he came in, basically, but the paramedics had started CPR and his parents had been with him, but even if they hadn’t it wouldn’t have changed a thing – they continued with CPR longer than they would have for an adult, gave him more adrenaline than would be needed to kill him, if he hadn’t been dead already, but their power to resurrect the dead remained stubbornly absent.

Crixus didn’t have children of his own, but he and Naevia wanted to get married and have kids once she had finished medical school and her first two years of training. The medical student who had been in the resuscitation – not doing anything important, fetching and carrying – had cried after the kid died, and had to be sent home early. Crixus hadn’t cried – he had never cried over a patient – but he stalked the department with a grim look on his face, and the mad people who turned up to A&E with stubbed toes and minor stomach upsets went all quiet and agreed that the best thing for them to do was to go home and see their own GP the next day.

So when the ambulance call came in – young man, 27, stabbed in a bar fight, his heart lifted: Finally, someone we can save. He volunteered to join the team the consultant was putting together to resuscitate the patient. He was quite looking forward to it.

But when he saw the guy, his heart sank. This guy was, to use the technical term “gubbed”. No chance. He couldn’t actually see the wound on the side of his neck under all the blood soaked material which had been used to stem the bleeding, but it looked to be right where the big blood vessels were. He had no respiratory effort, no pulse, didn’t have at the scene when the ambulance arrived... One of the paramedics whipped out his phone – he had taken a picture of the gigantic pool of blood at the scene, and even though Crixus only caught a glimpse of it – it was being shown to Barca, the more senior doctor – he could see enough to suspect that he could have exsanguinated. They mentioned his name, Duro, and the fact that his brother had done a good job of initiating Basic Life Support at the scene, and the name sounded familiar, something clicked in the back of Crixus’ brain, but he was a bit preoccupied.

After several rounds of chest compressions and three injections of adrenaline, Barca asked if everyone was happy if they stop. They all chorused “Yes.” and started to tidy up. One of them straightened the patient’s arms so they lay by his sides on the trolley, and Crixus looked at his face properly, now that the oxygen mask had been taken off. He looked so familiar, and Crixus walked round the trolley slightly so that he could see his face the right way up. Whoever said dead bodies looked like they were sleeping had never seen one. The guy’s mouth was open, his eyes half closed, his head at an angle that living people’s heads don’t rest at, because while you’re alive, the muscles of your neck automatically keep your head in a position where your airway will be open. Crixus frowned.

“What’s his name again?” he asked.

“It’s… Duro. Duro Bauer.” Barca said, and then he kept talking but Crixus didn’t hear because there was a rushing in his ears. He remembered sixteen year old Duro throwing up in the toilet of his student flat, Agron sitting behind him and occasionally patting his shoulder, laughing at his plight.

“I know him.” he muttered, and one of the nurses looked up sharply.

“You know him?”

“Yeah, I didn’t recognise him until just now. I lived with his brother when we were at medical school – he works upstairs, he’s cardiothoracic. Fuck. Wee Duro.”

There was a deathly silence. No one was even moving. Barca was studying him, frowning slightly. One of the paramedics finally spoke.

“His brother… Is that the one who’s waiting outside?”

“He’s only got the one brother, so far as I know. Agron.” Crixus tore his eyes away from Duro’s lifeless face. “Where is he?”

“I think one of the nurses was going to stick him in a consultation room. He was covered in blood, his clothes were saturated, you couldn’t put him out in the waiting room.”

“Right.” Crixus looked at Barca. “Can I go and tell him?”

Barca looked long suffering. “David…”

“No. Really. I think he’d like to hear it from me.”

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea.”

“Please.”

Barca sighed. “You can come with me, but as his friend, not as his brother’s doctor. OK? I’ll do the talking. You’re there for moral support for him.”

“Got it.” Crixus said. He didn’t mention that neither himself nor Agron would describe them as friends.

When they asked a passing student nurse, she pointed to the room the bloody guy was in, and when they walked in, Crixus realised that a part of him had been clinging to a desperate hope that it wouldn’t actually be Agron, that it would turn out to be the brother of another Duro Bauer. But when the guy – who had been sitting, leaning his elbows on his knees and looking at the floor – looked up, it was Agron, and Crixus’s heart sank. He started to wonder if this was a good idea, if Barca had been right all along. After staring, apparently unseeingly, at the two of them for a moment, Agron frowned.

“Crixus!” he exclaimed in disbelief.

Crixus’ lip twitched, but he didn’t smile. It wouldn’t have been appropriate.

“Hi Agron.” he said. He indicated Barca. “This is Dr Saidani, one of Duro’s doctors.”

“Right.” Agron nodded. Barca leaned out of the room to grab an extra chair, and Crixus sat in the one next to Agron. He had seen the blood covering his hands and arms, up to the elbow, but on sitting down he finally saw the blood staining Agron’s middle, which had been hidden by his hunched position when Crixus was standing up. He was stained brown from the bottom of his chest down to halfway down his thighs – it had to be a good half a litre or more just on Agron’s clothes. The nurse who put him in here had been right – you couldn’t put him in the waiting room, he’d terrify the other patients.

Barca had got his chair and sat down. He leaned forward slightly, his posture imitating Agron’s. Agron sat up a little straighter, and Barca followed his lead.

“So.” Barca said. “I just need to confirm, first, your name is Agron Bauer?”

“That’s me.”

“And you’re Duro Bauer’s brother?”

“I – I am.”

“I’m sorry, Agron, I haven’t got any good news for you.”

“Right…” Agron looked down at his hands, which were covered in blood, as were his arms up to the elbow. “I didn’t think you would, I… I work upstairs, in surgery. I… I know all about the limits of modern medicine.”

“OK. What do you know about your brother’s condition when he came in here?”

“He’d bled quite a lot. I think the bottle maybe got one of his big vessels, he was just hosing out blood. I put pressure on the wound and started CPR – his friends helped, they were really good, but none of them could do chest compressions or rescue breaths so I had a lot to do myself. And, um… nothing happened. No response, no breathing, no nothing.”

“Right. And it must have taken a while for the ambulance to arrive, you must have been exhausted.”

“Well, you’d have to ask them, I don’t know. It felt like forever, I actually was exhausted.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, that must have been really hard.”

“Yeah. But… Duro?”

“Yes, Duro. I’m afraid he didn’t survive.”

Agron’s face, which had been set in a determined, blank sort of expression, slipped into one of abject agony, but only for a moment. Crixus felt a mad urge to reach out and touch his shoulder, but resisted, remembering when he was a junior doctor at the end of a long shift, trying not to cry from stress and exhaustion and having just been shouted at, and hoping that no one would be nice or sympathetic to him because that would set him off.

Agron took a deep, shuddering breath and his face resumed its set, determined expression.

“I was… I think I was expecting that.”

“I am very, very sorry. We did everything we could.”

“No, absolutely, I’m sure you did.” Agron cleared his throat. “Could I… I mean, would I be able to… see…?”

“Yes, I think you can. We’ll bring him in here, if that’s all right. It’ll just be a bit quieter if someone else comes in to one of the other resuscitation bays.”

“Yeah, yeah, absolutely.”

“Tell you what.” Crixus spoke for the first time. “We can get you some scrubs to go home in – you can’t walk around like that.”

Agron looked down at himself, his eyebrows shot up, and Crixus cursed himself internally for not being more sensitive, less direct.

“Shit. Yeah, I didn’t realise.”

“OK.” Barca said. “Crixus, you take this gentleman to get some scrubs, I’ll go through to resus and get them to move his brother.”

He’s already forgotten both their names, Crixus thought. He didn’t blame him, he’d done it himself. Doctors hear a lot of new names every day.

Barca and Crixus stood up, but Agron hesitated, looking at the sink.

“Could I…?” he asked, gesturing hopelessly with his gore-soaked arms.

“Absolutely, go ahead.” Barca said, and left the room.

When Agron went to wash his hands, Crixus realised the guy was shaking violently. He didn’t think he could do much about that, but watched him out of the corner of his eye as he clumsily soaped up and scrubbed his hands. Even in the state he was in, he noticed, he automatically washed his hands like a surgeon, scrubbing each surface of the hands more than once, keeping his fingertips above the level of his elbows at all times. When he was finally finished, Crixus grabbed several paper towels from the dispenser and handed them to him, rather than watch him struggle. Then they walked together to the doctor’s room, Crixus gave him scrubs to change into, and got him a plastic bag for his bloody clothes while he was changing in the bathroom.

When Agron came out, holding his civvies, Crixus held out the bag, and then insisted on carrying it to the room where Duro now lay, as if helping to carry his stuff would in any way impact on his grief. He poked his head round the door, to make sure the staff had made appropriate use of their window to move the body, and found that they had. He let Agron in, and left the bag of clothing and blood on one of the chairs.

“Well, I’ll leave you. If the porter comes, tell them who you are, they’ll wait.” But Agron already knew this, had probably said it to grieving family members before. He left, and walked slowly over to the main hub, where most of the doctors seemed to be huddled in conversation. They looked up and stopped talking when Crixus arrived.

“How’s he doing?” One of the nurses asked.

Crixus sighed.

“I dunno. He was pretty quiet. I think he’s holding it together pretty wel-”

At that moment, a demented howl of grief rent the air, and everyone looked in the direction it had come from – the room where Agron was. Before anyone could tell him not to, Crixus strode towards the room and pulled the door open.

Agron was crouched next to his brother’s bed, one hand on the guardrail, one over his mouth, which was open in a silent scream. He looked up when Crixus walked in.  
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Shh, it’s OK.” Crixus crouched down next to him. “Breathe.”

Agron obeyed, taking a deep shuddering breath. On the out breath, he swore: “Fuck.”

Another deep breath.

“Oh, fuck.”

Another.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” The “Christ” came out as a strangled sob, and Crixus put his arm around Agron’s shoulders. There was one small, stupid part of his brain which wanted him to say “It’s OK.” but he managed to stop it. But he couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he and Agron just crouched there in almost silence, broken only by Agron’s very quiet crying.

The police arrived, and would have interviewed Agron in the room with Duro’s body in it, if Agron had not been worried that they were taking up valuable space in a crowded department. Crixus, quietly thinking that he himself was in no fit state to see any more patients before the end of his shift, let them into the office, which was empty at this time of night, and they talked there. They offered him tissues, but Agron didn’t need them. His eyes were red, but the flash of anguish that had flared up when he saw Duro’s body – his eyes closed, as if in sleep, his skin greyish, his neck neatly bandaged – had faded. He could almost feel it, just out of the corner of his mind. He had the sense of it stalking him, waiting for him to no longer have a distraction, in the form of two policemen trying to catch his brother’s killer. Waiting to pounce, once he was alone and vulnerable.

“We’re going to need your permission to perform a post mortem.”

“A post mortem?” Agron was disbelieving. “Can you not tell what he died of just by looking at him?”

“We’re going to need a forensic pathologist to…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fine. Do it.”

“I can’t promise when the body will be returned to you. It usually takes a couple of weeks.”

“Really?”

“Um.”

“It’s fine.”

They finished up as quickly as they could, leaving Agron with a card with a number on it to call when he felt ready – but ideally in a couple of days – so he could come into the station and make a full statement about what had happened. He pocketed it, and looked up to see Crixus sticking his head round the door.

“Hi. Just wondering – you’re cardiothoracic, aren’t you? That’s Professor Oenomaeus, right?”

“Yeah…”

“I was just going to send him an email telling him what happened. I’m assuming you won’t be in tomorrow. Or…” Crixus looked at his watch. “Or later today.”

“Um.” Agron was saying “Um.” a lot. “Thanks.”

“Right. I’m done in twenty minutes if you’d like a lift home.”

“OK.”

Agron remained numb until Crixus returned (five minutes later, someone showed up to work early) and led him outside, through the waiting room, to the car park. He dimly remembered being asked if it was OK for Crixus to tell Kai and Diona what had happened, and consenting, and asked where they were.

“Went home already.” Crixus said. “Police spoke to them first, out in the waiting room.”

“Oh.” This struck Agron as odd, but then police did not have the same rules about confidentiality that doctors had, and it was standard practice for them (probably) to take statements from people out in public, where people could listen in. He was glad they had gone, didn’t think he wanted their sympathies. Crixus didn’t offer any, but, once they were sitting in his car, did take Agron’s phone off him and programme in both the police’s number and the number of the morgue, in case he has any questions. Looking at the phone in Crixus’ hand as he typed, frowning, Agron came to a horrifying realisation, and put his face in his hands.

“What?” Crixus asked. “Agron? Agron, what is it? Are you OK?”

“I… fuck. I have to phone my mum.” Crixus looked at him, his face blank. “I have to phone my fucking mother, and tell her that… tell her that her baby’s dead.” His voice cracked on the last word, and he slumped sideways, against the window. Crixus had frozen with his hand over the keypad, and slowly lowered the phone.

“I… I’m really sorry. Want me to stay with you when you call?”

“No! No, I’ll do it when I get home, I… I’ll be fine.” Agron’s lip wobbled, and he was silent. He turned his face away from Crixus, who slowly, cautiously, resumed his task, pointedly ignoring Agron’s ragged breathing, and occasional broken sobs. His task complete, he put the phone in the holder between the two seats, started the car, and began to drive. Neither of them said a word. Agron couldn’t, and Crixus wouldn’t. He knew roughly where Agron lived, but had to ask him for the actual address, which Agron struggled to provide. Crixus wondered if he should be being more sympathetic, but the way Agron was leaning away from him, plastering himself to the far side of the car’s interior, made him think not.

Outside Agron’s building, Crixus stopped the car and turned off the engine. Agron wiped his face violently with the heels of his hands, and glanced sideways at Crixus.

“Thanks.” he said numbly. “For the lift, and… everything.” He meant it, but couldn’t quite manage to sound like he did.

“No trouble.” Crixus said gruffly. “You want me to come inside with you, or… anything?”

“No! No, I can manage. I… I’ll be…” Agron almost said fine, but it seemed too ridiculous. He began to fumble for the door handle, and after a moment Crixus took pity on him, and leaned over to open it for him.

“Cheers.” Agron said awkwardly, climbing out.

“Agron! Your phone!” Crixus shouted. Agron reached back and took it from Crixus, before beginning to make his way towards the door. For the first time, it occurred to him to check that his keys were in his jeans, not in the jacket he had left in the pub. He found them quickly enough, and fumbled to get the door open. He didn’t realise until he managed it, that Crixus had waited for him to get into the building before driving off.

Agron dragged himself up two flights of stairs and into his flat. He established, after looking through his stuff, that he had left his wallet in the pub. He would have to go and get it, or else cancel his cards, but he would do it later. Now, it was five am, his mother usually got up at six, and he had an hour to figure out how to tell her that her worst nightmare had come true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains very graphic bloody violence and explicit descriptions of injury and unsuccessful CPR.


	2. Phone Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agron starts making phone calls to tell people what happened

Six o’clock rolled round. He felt exhausted, but not because he had been up for twenty three and a half hours. He picked up the phone, scrolled through his contacts to his mother’s number, and stared at it for seconds and seconds before pressing it with his thumb and lifting the phone to his ear.

            “Agron?” There was a yawn in his mother’s voice. “Agron, what you phoning so early for, sweetie? I was still in bed, Alistair was asleep.”

            “Mum,” Agron said, and that was as much as he could get out before he started crying.

            “Agron? Agron! Agron, what is it? Agron, you’re scaring me, darlin’, what’s up? Agron?”

            “Mum… Mum…” was the best he could manage.

            “Agron, is something wrong, are you hurt? Agron, are you OK?”

            “I’m fine, it’s- it’s – it’s Duro.” And then he was off into a fresh bout of sobbing, and couldn’t hear what his mother was saying.

            “What’s happened? Agron! Agron, is he hurt, is he married, what is it?”

            Agron almost laughed, registered, at the back of his mind, that he would laugh in other circumstances.

            “He’s… um. We were in a bar last night, and there was a fight, and Duro went to break it up, and…” he couldn’t carry on, had to try and take some deep breaths. His mother was growing rapidly frantic.

            “What happened? Is he hurt? Do you need us to come up and see him? Are you in the hospital? What is it – wake up, you.” This last, Agron assumed, was directed at her husband, his stepfather.

            “I’m not – I’m not at the hospital. They sent me home.”

            “So he’s… all right? Out of danger?”

            “No, Mum. Mum… he got stabbed. He didn’t make it. He died.”

            There followed the most complete silence Agron had ever heard. He stopped breathing, his mother seemed to as well. The birds outside the window stopped chirping, or maybe he just stopped hearing them. Then his mother made the most terrible noise he had ever heard in his life, and he felt something tear in his chest.

            “NOOOOO!” she moaned. “It can’t be! Agron! Agron! Tell me – he isn’t – he can’t be”

            “He’s dead. Mum… Mum, I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking fucking sorry.”

            “Agron?” His stepfather’s voice. High and panicky, uncomprehending. “Agron, what is it, what’s happened to Duro?”

            “He’s… he’s dead.”

            Silence. Silence and silence and silence, if you didn’t count the faint sound of his mother howling some distance from her phone, as her husband, Duro’s good-as father, presumably stood with his face a mask of horror, and swayed in silence.

            “What… how… Agron, what happened?”

            “We were in a – a- a – a pub, and he went to get the next – round, and there was a fight, and he got in the middle, and he got – fucking – bottled in the neck.”

            Agron heard a strangled sob from the other end of the line, and broke down himself, gasping for breath, wondering if this was what it felt like to drown as he fought to take in a decent breath between sobs.

            “And I _tried_ , Alistair, I _tried_ , but he – he – he just kept _fucking_ bleeding, and I couldn’t…” He hiccupped. “I couldn’t…”

            “Agron…” Alistair’s voice was weak. “Agron…”

            “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry…”

            “Agron, don’t… No.”

            “Sorry.” Agron whispered. He was breathing now, after a fashion, great big shuddering breaths. He had, at some point in the conversation, curled up in a ball, and was holding his phone to his cheek as if his life depended on it.

            “Agron… it’s OK. It’s all going to be OK. Are you all right? Did you get hurt?”

            “Agron?” His mother’s voice returned. “Agron? What happened? Did you get hurt as well? Are you OK?”

            “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

            “Really?”

            “I am! I’m fine!”

            “Agron, I think we need to come up and see you.”          

            “I…” Agron normally objected to visits from his parents – he had to tidy his flat – but in this instance he was OK with the idea. “Yes, yes, I think you should come up here. I need to speak to the police about what happened, I don’t think I should leave the city.”

            “All right then. We’ll come up and see you. Today. We’ll come today.”

            “OK.” Suddenly Agron was bone-tired. “OK.”

            “Agron. I’m going to hang up. We’ll phone you later. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

            “OK.” Agron wasn’t sure if he was numb or just exhausted.

            “I love you Agron. We both love you so much.”

            “I love you Mum. And Alistair.”

            “We love you. Bye. See you soon.”

            “Bye.”

            The phone went dead. Agron let the phone slide out of his grasp and himself slide sideways. Hugging his knees to his chest, he closed his eyes and drifted off.

 

He was woken by his phone ringing, several hours later. He was freezing, the way you always are when you fall asleep without a blanket. His mouth dry and foul, he groped for his phone and saw that it was a witheld number. Suspecting it might be the hospital, he blinked a few times and shook his head to wake himself up before answering.

            “Hello?”

            “Hello, Agron? It’s Professor Oenomaeus.”

            “Hello. Hi. Sorry, I meant to get in touch, but…”

            “I got an email this morning from someone in the Emergency Department. They said something happened last night – well, this morning.”           

            “Yeah. My brother died.” He felt, to be honest, as if he was hearing someone else say the words. There was a brief pause, as if the Professor had been surprised by his bluntness.

            “I’m very sorry, Agron. You have my condolences. Were you close?”

            “Yeah.” Agron’s voice cracked. “Very.”

            “I’m so sorry.” There was a pause. “Were you asleep?”

            “Yeah. Sorry, I was at the hospital until early this morning.”

            “Don’t worry about it. I think I should let you get back to sleep. And Agron, if there’s anything I can do…”

            “I doubt it.” Agron was usually cheekier to his superiors than was customary in the rigid hierarchy of surgery, but that was a bit much even for him. He coughed. “Sorry.”

            “No need, Agron. I’ll phone you again in a week or two, to see how you are. And don’t be a stranger, you can phone any of us any time.”

            “Right. OK.”

            “I’ll speak to you soon. Bye, Agron.”

            “Bye.” Agron took the phone away from his ear and ended the call, not caring that it was rude. He was pretty sure he was still more than fifty percent asleep. Turning up the volume on his phone to maximum, before staggering through to the door of his flat to make sure the buzzer was turned on, he went through to his bedroom and crawled under the covers, still in his scrubs from the night before.

 

He got texts, which seemed bizarre, from his mum and stepdad. Both saying the same thing – clearly they were both too distracted to talk to each other about who was texting Agron. They were getting a train that would get in at three that afternoon. They would come to his flat – he didn’t have to meet them at the station. He read them as they came in, texted back his address and postcode as requested, and laid his head back on the pillow, drifting into that strange netherworld between sleep and wakening, not thinking, barely feeling.

            When he heard the sound of the buzzer he got up and staggered out of bed, realising as he did so that he smelled bad. He pressed the button to let them in and ran down the stairs (only just remembering not to lock himself out of the flat) to help them with their bags.

            “Agron!” his mum exclaimed. Had she got visibly older since he last saw her? Had she got older since that morning? He couldn’t be sure. He hugged her tight enough that something cracked ominously, and she returned the favour. He could not help but think, as he breathed in her familiar scent, felt that same pressure across his back that he had felt a thousand times before, that he would be OK now that his mum was here. It would all be OK.

            “Agron, why are you wearing scrubs?” Alistair asked.

            “Uh.” Agron had to think about it. “My clothes were covered in blood, they didn’t want me walking around like that cos I’d frighten the patients. And then I fell asleep, so…”

            “Well, let’s go upstairs.”

            It was bizarrely normal, mundane even. Agron swore he heard his mother sigh when they entered the flat – his stuff was everywhere.

            “I’ll stick the kettle on.” he mumbled, working on autopilot.

            “Yeah.” Alistair agreed. “I think you can just drop your bag anywhere, Lin, that seems to be the way it works in here.”

            Agron rolled his eyes. It felt surreal. As he filled the kettle, took mugs out of the cupboard and teabags out of the jar, he noticed, absently, that his hands were shaking. His mother crept up behind him and put her hands over his.

            “I can do this.” she said. “Go and sit down.” He obeyed, shoving some papers off the sofa so he could sit down. Alistair sat in the armchair next to him, and they both looked down at their feet rather than make eye contact. Agron wondered if Alistair, like him, was worried that he would start crying if he looked at another member of Duro’s family.

            “Here ya go.” His mother put mugs of tea down in front of Agron and Alistair.

“I found biscuits.”

            This is fucking surreal, Agron thought.

            None of them touched their tea. Linda put her arm around Agron’s shoulders (at 6’2”, he had to slouch over considerably to let her do it) and asked him, again, what had happened.

            He recounted the events of the previous evening, from him arriving late and being solemnly told by Duro to down his first pint so he could catch up, up until his medical school flatmate appeared out of nowhere to tell him that – that…

            He stopped talking, his breath heaving. Alistair crossed the room from his seat to crouch between Agron and his mother’s feet, and reached up to stroke Agron’s shoulder. The family huddled together, like that, and cried without effort, without sobbing, tears quietly rolling down their faces as they clutched each other and felt the absence of the other person who should have been there, without whom none of them would be there.

 

            “We have to tell Nick.” Linda said, later that day, and Agron bit his lip and did not say what he was thinking, because his mother had enough to cope with.

            “How?” Alistair asked.

            “I’m not sure. He doesn’t accept calls that he knows are from me.” She said this matter of factly, as if it was normal for a man in his fifties to dodge phone calls from his remarried ex wife, who only phoned him to tell him the really important stuff – graduations, and the like – about his sons.

            “Text him?” Agron suggested.

            “Agron.”

            “I mean, text him asking him to phone you. Say something’s happened, that it’s bad, don’t say what.”

            “Hmm.” Linda said absently.

She did it. He rang her back ten minutes later, and she left the room. Agron did not strain to hear what she was saying, he _didn’t_ , but he heard her asking him where he was, what he was doing. She said that it was bad, more than once, and finally spat it out. He’s dead. So you do need to come to Scotland, but for the funeral. She came back through to the sitting room.

            “He wants to speak to you.”

            Agron leaned backwards, away from the proffered phone, and shook his head, in the universal gesture for “But I don’t want to talk to him.”

            “Agron!” His mother hissed. “You are twenty nine years old. Answer the fucking phone!”

            Reluctantly, he extended an arm and took the phone.

            “Hello?” he said. His voice was heavy with malice, as it always was when he spoke to his father.

            “Agron?” Was his father’s voice higher than last time they had spoken? It was difficult – it had been so long. “Agron, what happened?”

            “He died.”

            “But…”

            “He tried to break up a fight in a bar and got bottled in the neck.”

            “Jesus Christ.”

            “Yeah.”

            A pause. A ragged breath from the other end of the phone line.

            “Agron… Agron, are you OK?”

            “Course not. Do you want to talk to my mum again?”

            “I… no, I just…” A sigh. “OK. Actually, I need to ask her something.”

            His mother was glaring at him when he handed the phone back.

            “Hey, Nick. Yeah, he’s having a pretty hard time. You don’t have to, I’m pretty sure he won’t mind…” she looked over her shoulder at Agron, who was looking up at her with an expression of “I might mind.”

            “Um. Well. Maybe it would be for the best.”

            Agron never asked her what she and his father had been talking about. When he looked up, he met his stepfather’s eye. Alistair’s expression was unreadable, but he offered Agron another KitKat, so Agron thought he couldn’t be too angry.

 

Agron’s mum gently suggested that he should have a shower, and he realised that he must _stink_. Once out of the shower, he felt more awake than he had all day, and changed the sheets on his bed. Then, just as he finished, his phone rang, and he realised it was Spartacus. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he took a deep, shaky breath and answered.

            “Hello?”

            “Hi. Agron?”

            “Yeah. Hi.”

            “Um. So, I got this phone call from Crixus this morning.”

            Agron held it together, just about. Spartacus was a little sympathetic, but not too much, concerned mostly with practicalities. Agron agreed gratefully when Spartacus offered to phone round all their mutual friends (most of Agron’s friends) and tell them what had happened. He demurred when Spartacus asked if he wanted to meet up later that week, and had to end the phone call abruptly when he felt tears threatening. He curled up on his side on the bed, and stayed there until his mum knocked gently on the door.

            “Agron? Agron? Are you OK? Can I come in?”

            He didn’t say anything, and heard the door opening.

            “Ag- Oh, Agron.”

            His mum sighed, and sat down on the bed behind him, her hand on his shoulder. She didn’t say anything. Alistair joined them a couple of minutes later, and he didn’t say anything either.


	3. Neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agron gives his statement to the police, which gives him an opportunity to think in more detail about what happened.
> 
> Lots of descriptions of blood and gore

Agron looked at the clock. 11am. Could it really only be 12 hours since Agron had walked into the pub where his brother would die? Nine and a half since Duro had sunk to the floor, covered in blood. Eight since Crixus came into that goddamn A&E cubicle to tell Agron his brother was dead. Agron blinked and looked around his living room, blinking to focus as if he had been asleep, instead of merely thinking about something that felt like a particularly bad dream. His mum was bustling around the place, picking up dirty glasses and tutting.

            Agron had read somewhere that people regressed when they went back to their childhood homes, but he didn’t think anyone had documented the phenomenon whereby the mothers of grown-ass adults, when under the same roof as their offspring, seemed to regress to being the parents of teenagers. Agron’s mum found his bloody clothes and straightaway started going through the pockets, ready to put them in the washing machine. She found the card with the police number on it, and immediately started interrogating Agron in a way that reminded him painfully of every single time his mother had come home to find a broken ornament, a trail of mud through the house, or half a punnet of strawberries mysteriously missing. Finding out that he still had to make a full statement to the police, Agron’s mum stood over him and made him call the number, arranging to come in later that afternoon. At 4pm. Eleven hours after Duro officially died.

            When the time came for Agron to leave, his mum bizarrely offered to drive him in, and Agron was so surprised that he was in the passenger seat of his own car, being driven by his mother, before he knew what was happening.

            “This takes me back – ferrying you around,” she said brightly, and the memory of fighting with Duro over the front seat was so painful that Agron almost doubled over in his seat, looking incredulously over at his mother, wondering how she could say such a thing and not be poleaxed by grief.

            Linda MacRae (nee Bauer, nee Smith) was a coper. That was what people said. Getting pregnant before she graduated medical school, she coped. Trying to get through training with two boys under five, she coped. Divorced with two kids, she coped. Ex husband doing an abrupt disappearing act, leaving her with two young kids with abandonment issues and no support, she coped. And now, Agron realised, looking in the rear view mirror at his stepdad, slumped sideways in his seat, staring numbly into the middle distance, with one child dead and the other numb with shock and grief, her husband a traumatised shell, she was coping, because no one else was fucking going to. And suddenly Agron loved his mother so fiercely he didn’t know what to do, until she pulled into a parking space and, before she could say anything, he leaned over and hugged her uncomfortably tight.

            “Baby,” she said fondly, and hugged him back, before firmly patting his back to indicate that the hug was over. “Come in, we’ll go inside.”

            The police were really good – Agron couldn’t fault them. As soon as he said his name at the front desk he was ushered into a room by himself and offered a cup of OK coffee. Moments later, two officers in uniform appeared and offered to take him through what they’d found out so far about Duro’s “case”. When he asked if his mother and stepdad could be present, someone immediately went and got them, brought them in, got them chairs, made sure everyone was comfortable before they got started.

            The first thing they said was that they thought they had found the guy who wielded the bottle that killed Duro – that they had identified him with the help of some of the people in the bar.        

            “Oh! So he’s… in jail?”

            “Uh…” The man looked at him, considering. “He’s… um. He went and jumped off a bridge. We think it was straight after… after what happened.”

            “Jumped off a…” Agron almost asked which bridge, before realising he could ask directly for the information he wanted.

            “So. Is he… dead?”

            “Not quite.” A short pause, while the sergeant considered. “Not yet.”

            “ITU?”

            “Yeah.”

            Agron thought for a moment. He had a hospital ID badge, access all areas, as it were. He could, if he wanted to, go into the hospital, walk into ITU, no questions asked. And… then what?”

            “Where did you say you worked?”

            “I’m a surgeon. I work at the hospital.”

            “Oh.” The sergeant surveyed him. “Don’t go into ITU.”

            “I wasn’t… I mean, I wouldn’t.”

            “Uh huh.” The man looked at him. “There’s a policeman there all the time. Don’t.”

            Agron had been told before that he didn’t give other people enough credit, that he had been guilty of imagining himself to be the only one in any given room with a brain.

            The police explained what happened from here. In the event that the killer pulled through, and was judged fit to stand trial, there would be a court case in about a year. If not, there would just be an inquest. They seemed to think the latter would be more likely. Agron and his stepfather nodded and hoped that some of what was being said would register so they could remember it later, while Agron’s mum started crying, and Agron and his stepdad, on either side of her, leaned in and put their arms around her, exchanging a look as they did.

            After they had gone through everything, one of the police officers offered them some time together before Agron gave his statement, but his mum and stepdad were already out of their seats and halfway towards the door. Agron suddenly felt five years old again, watching his mum walk out of the room and thinking: don’t go!

            They had to go through every minute detail of the previous night: what exactly Agron heard, what he saw, the precise order things happened in. Agron wondered, abstractly, if he was going to break down crying, but his voice remained steady. He felt almost as if he was listening to someone else talk about trying to resuscitate his brother and failing. At the end, the police officer thanked him for his time and asked him to wait while they typed up his statement.

            “Sorry I couldn’t remember all the times that things happened. I’d a coupla pints under my belt before it all kicked off.”

            The policeman laughed and left the room, and Agron suddenly went cold as it occurred to him for the first time that he had been drunk – well, maybe not drunk, but at least tipsy – while trying to resuscitate his brother. Had he done everything right? Was there anything he could have done differently? If he had turned down that second pint, drunk more slowly, eaten something before he came to the pub so his stomach was lined, might Duro still be alive? Agron had been – not comforting himself, but... perhaps comforting himself – with the fact that what had happened was unavoidable, there was nothing more he could have done, Were his injuries potentially survivable, if the person in charge of resuscitating him had been sober?

            Agron took his phone out and typed in “can you survive getting stabbed in the jugular vein?” He tapped his foot as the little loading icon went round and round and, when the page finally loaded, had to blink a couple of times before he could focus on what he was reading.

            The first result was an article by a doctor – probably, anyone can claim to be anyone on the internet – saying that a stab wound to the neck is usually not survivable. The second result was along a similar theme, but qualified that a stab wound not affecting the major blood vessels would be more survivable. But Agron kept looking, searching for proof that Duro could have survived, that it was Agron’s fault he hadn’t.

            Eventually he found it. Chris Malarchuck. Canadian ice hockey player, had his jugular vein severed by another player’s skate, survived because the coach reached into the wound on his neck and pinched the vein shut. Why hadn’t Agron done that? A fucking hockey coach could think to apply direct pressure to the vessel itself, but it was beyond a surgeon to do the same for his own brother? If it had been a patient, Agron could have taken a deep breath, learned from it and moved on, making sure next time he came across a similar injury he did things differently. But this wasn’t a patient, and Agron had no other brothers to do better by.

            Agron stood up, sprang to the door and opened it. A policewoman walking past jumped visibly as the door almost bounced off the wall.

            “Are you OK?” she asked warily.

            Agron could not bring himself to tell the truth, which was _I want my mum_ , so he said “No, I’m fine,” in an unconvincing, slightly high pitched voice, and went back into the room. A shadow fell across the door and he looked up. It was the policewoman.   

            “Is there...” she screwed up her face as if she was thinking. “Someone said there were some people waiting for you?”

            “My parents.”

            “I can go and get them? It’s a long time to sit in here on your own – sorry!” she smiled, making it OK, making it normal that Agron was having a nervous breakdown in an interview room in a police station. Maybe it was normal.

            “OK.” Agron said, trying to sound like he wasn’t freaking out, and the policewoman smiled and left.          

            Agron realised he was rocking backwards and forwards in his chair, and stopped with an effort.

            “Agron!” His mother’s voice made Agron stand up, and Linda Bauer appeared a moment later, running around the corner wild-eyed.

            “Agron, are you all right?” she asked, taking hold of Agron’s shoulders and looking up at his face searchingly

            “Are you OK?” his stepdad added, slightly superfluously.

            “I’m fine, I...” Agron took a deep breath. “I think I fucked up.”

            “How?” Agron’s mum guided him to sit down while taking the adjacent seat, frowning in concern.

            “Duro...” suddenly it seemed completely stupid. “I read this thing...” he held up his phone “There was a hockey player in Canada. He took a sharp skate to the neck and it severed his jugular. He survived – the coach put his hand in the wound and held the vein closed.”

            Agron’s mum was staring at him.

            “And?”

            “And – I should have done that! If I had, maybe Duro...” he trailed off

            His mother almost laughed, she scoffed so hard.

            “Agron, he got stabbed in the fucking neck! It was a fucking miracle that hockey player survived – you did everything you could. I would have done the same.”

            “But-“

            “Agron.” His mum took his face in her hands and tilted it to look down at her. What did you tell me when I asked what you about ACE-inhibitors versus CCBs?”

            “Can’t remember,” Agron mumbled, even though he could.

            “Agron.” His mother was staring at him really hard.

            “I’m a cardiothoracic surgeon,” Agron mumbled. “If I can’t fix it by cracking open the chest cavity and guddling around, I haven’t a fucking clue.”

            “Atta boy.” his mum said, patting his cheek and beginning to turn away.

            “I should have done ENT.” Agron said, and his mum gave him a sharp look before tutting and turning away.

            He felt better.


	4. Outside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agron leaves the house

Agron woke suddenly from a dream involving men swinging sharp implements towards Duro as Agron watched helpless, his feet seemingly stuck in cement, and sat bolt upright in bed.

            “Duro.” he said, and looked at the clock. 3am. Duro had been dead twenty four hours. Agron lay back down, trying unsuccessfully to get back to sleep.

 

            “I think we need more food,” Agron’s mum said, looking in the fridge. They had barely eaten the previous day, had ordered a takeaway without enthusiasm and picked at it after returning from the police station. They were having leftovers for lunch, but where they usually would have demolished it in half an hour, they had to admit defeat and bin it after realising it was never going to get eaten. Agron waited for his mother to volunteer to go out shopping, but the silence stretched out and he realised, looking at her drawn, wan face, that she had had enough of being the strong one.

            While Alistair stayed with Agron’s mum, Agron went to the shops, armed with a list the three of them had come up with with a great effort, of ingredients for (reasonably) healthy meals they could make with minimal effort. Plus frozen pizzas, for when even minimal effort was too much. He heard someone laugh in the next aisle over, and almost jumped out of his skin. He hadn’t heard another person laugh since before Duro died. But, as he walked past the aisle the laughter had come from, and saw a gaggle of young women huddled round a phone, he realised life had gone on, for most people, even as his own world had come crashing down.

            Agron had got almost everything on the list when he walked past the newspaper stand and for some reason slowed down to read the headlines, which he never usually did. Predictably, the national papers showed further evidence of the world continuing to turn, even with a giant hole where Duro used to be, with headlines about Syria, and Rochdale, and the ongoing clusterfuck in the states. But one of the local rags had a headline that made his blood run cold:

            “Bloodbath in local pub!” Over a picture of the pub they had been in when it all went down. Agron picked it up and impatiently turned the page, starting to read. 

            “A normal night out turned to horror...”

            “Argument reportedly over a drugs deal gone wrong...”

            “Duro Bauer, due to start work as a Primary School teacher after recently graduating...” – What! How did they have his name! How did they have a picture of him!

            “Despite the best efforts of his brother, a surgeon, and A&E staff, Mr Bauer succumbed to his injuries...”

            “The attacker is reportedly in Intensive Care in the same hospital where Mr Bauer died, as he attempted to take his own life by leaping from a bridge...”

            Words blurred together as Agron’s eyes skipped over the page, never focusing long enough to take anything meaningful in.

            “Hey! This isn’t a library – are you going to buy that?”

            “No.” Agron said, dropping it back on the shelf and stumbling away. He made his way to the checkout and, as the checkout lady scanned his purchases, crammed them unthinkingly, unseeingly into his bags until, genuinely concerned, she stopped him and packed his bags herself.


	5. How Am I?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spartacus calls to check in

            Agron’s phone rang when he was hiding in his bedroom, sitting on the floor between the door and the wardrobe, just so he could be alone with his own grief and not be confronted with that of his parents. It hadn’t rung since the day before – not long, but everything seemed to take longer these days. It was Spartacus.

            “Hi. Agron?” Spartacus said, and Agron initially said nothing, then remembered that when someone phoned you you were supposed to talk.

            “Hi. Hi, Spart.”

            “Are – How are you, Agron? Are you OK?”

            Agron took the phone away from his ear and looked at it before he replied:

            “Um?”

            “Sorry! I’m sorry – that was a stupid question.”

            “Ach.” Agron said.

            There was a pause.

            “People keep asking how you’re getting on. I don’t know what to tell them.”

            Agron took a moment to think about that.

            “It’s been a _day_. How have people had time to _keep_ asking you about me?”

            “I’ve got fifty seven text messages about you in the last day and a half. I counted.”

            “How many not about me?”

            “Four. One of them was from Domino’s”

            Something felt weird in Agron’s face, and he realised it was because he wasn’t laughing, or even smiling, at Spartacus’ joke. Spartacus must have sensed it, because:

            “Sorry.”

            “Don’t worry about it.”

            There was a pause. Agron had always been impatient with phone calls, never let silence stretch any length of time, but now he contemplated a pair of trainers sticking out from under his bed and wondered if Duro had a similar collection under his bed that he and his parents would have to clear out.

            “Well?” Spartacus asked.

            “Well, what?”

            “What do I tell people?”

            “Tell them....” Agron leaned sideways against his wardrobe and found a blank bit of wall to stare at. “Tell them when I know how I am I’ll let them know.”


	6. Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duro continues to be dead

Agron had seen people grieve before. Open heart surgery, when it went well, could transform people’s lives. When it didn’t, it could bring them to a close. He himself had delivered the dreaded news he had received in the emergency department: I have something to tell you… I’m afraid he didn’t make it… I am very sorry. He knew what people’s faces did when they were told that their husband or mother or granny had died, but had never understood, not really, what went on internally. He hadn’t tried to. Why would you? Doctors, surgeons, are meant to respect what families are going through, not to understand it. They’re meant to carry on as normal while _other_ people sicken and die, and _their_ families mourn them. It is widely accepted that doctors and surgeons think of themselves as invulnerable, Agron had not realised that he had thought of Duro the same way.

            The numb shock did not take him by surprise. He did feel guilty, even as the intellectual part of his brain tried to tell him that there was no need, because his brother was dead, and he was sitting here dry-eyed, instead of crying his heart out or… fucking breaking furniture or some shit. The despair, when it came, and dragged at his bones, was almost a relief. The vastness of the grief washed over him, consumed him, an he settled into its embrace. It was almost a relief to surrender to it, even as he stared into space, wondering how this level of sadness could be compatible with life. It felt like there should be some kind of off switch, some limit to his sadness, but at the same time he was almost glad there wasn’t.

            It still didn’t feel real. Duro shouldn’t be dead, he was only twenty seven. _Just_ twenty seven. He was barely out of university, having dropped out of medical school a couple of years in, spent some time pinging around doing different jobs before retraining as a primary school teacher. He was due to start work soon, Agron was curious how Duro was going to do cope with the job, which was very demanding. But now he would never know. You hear about people waking up in the morning, after someone dies, and forgetting for a moment, then remembering all at once. Agron was expecting that, but had not been prepared for the fact that it could happen while you were _awake._ That your mind could wander down some strange, innocent thought process, and you would think: I was deeply sad a minute ago, why was that? Oh _yeah_.

            Physical tiredness was a strange one, Agron thought. He hadn’t done anything more physically demanding than sit around with his mum and stepdad and talk a bit – about Duro, initially, then about the practicalities. When would he (they would not say “his body”) be released by the police pathologists – Linda thought it best to think about it probably happening in about a month – how long should Linda and Alistair stay with Agron, would they need to go back home to take care of anything? And yet Agron was _shattered_ , the kind of bone-deep tired where you can barely move, which he hadn’t felt since that weekend he was on call and slept six hours in three days. Being really fucking sad was surprisingly tiring.


	7. Kai and Diona Return

            The newspaper, it emerged, had got Duro’s name from the police – they didn’t have any choice but to release information, but were supposed to inform family members when news of their loved ones’ deaths were about to hit the papers, and were very sorry. The pictures had come from facebook, and Agron had a feeling there was some kind of data protection reason that newspapers weren’t supposed to use pictures off facebook, and a stronger feeling that he could not be arsed to pusue it. Spartacus called him every day, and after a couple of days Agron started to feel bad about what a bad conversationalist he was, but not bad enough to make more of an effort. Or perhaps he just felt too bad to make more of an effort.

            Duro’s friend Kai got in touch with him after Duro had been dead for four days, through another friend of Duro’s who had Agron’s phone number. He had picked up Agron’s jacket, and had his wallet. Agron had cancelled his card and was due to get a new one the next day by this point, but texted Kai his address anyway, so he could return it.

            Kai and Diona came round together. It wasn’t that odd, when Agron thought about it. He couldn’t blame the guy for wanting moral support. But while they (Agron, his parents and Duro’s friends) were all exchanging earnest platitudes about Duro in Agron’s kitchen, he couldn’t help but notice that Kai’s arm around Diona’s waist could be perceived as more than comforting, that the way she put her head on his shoulder as she listened, biting back tears, to Agron’s mother, seemed to point to greater closeness than they had shown before. Agron wanted them to leave, and could not quite manage to be as friendly as he ought to be, but he tried. His parents must have known that he had tried, because after Kai and Diona left, they didn’t tell him off for being rude and standoffish. Admittedly, his mum was crying too much to talk, but still. If she had wanted to, she would have found a way to telegraph her displeasure.

            “They seem nice.” she said, at length.

            “Mmhmm.” Agron said non committally.

            “Did you know them? Before…” Alistair stopped talking.

            “A bit.” Agron said. “They were studying Primary Teaching with Duro. I’d met Kai a couple of times before but the first time I met Diona was… that night.”

            “Oh.” his mother reached out and wound her arm around Agron’s upper arm, giving it a squeeze. Agron gave her a small, tight smile.

            “I thought Duro had a bit of a thing for Diona.” he said absently. His mum and stepdad looked up sharply.

            “Really? But I thought she and Kai were… together.”

            “Uh. They weren’t.” Agron shrugged. “They were a bit more touchy feely now than they were… y’know. Before.”

            The expressions on his parents’ faces were unreadable.

            “Well.” his mother said eventually. “Never mind.”

            It’s not like Duro’s ever going to find out, Agron thought, and immediately hated himself so much he felt sick.


	8. Hypothetical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agron wonders about what might have been

Agron’s dad called every so often, and always wanted to talk to Agron. After leaving the room whenever he called stopped working (Agron’s mum had very quick reflexes, and a grip like a limpet) Agron took to “accidentally” hanging up whenever the phone was passed to him. He considered it an extremely bad sign that the strongest objection his mother could muster to this infantile behaviour was a disapproving noise, and a lecture that trailed off after a couple of sentences.  
  
    “I wish I’d been the one to get up and get the next round.” Agron announced abruptly to the room. His stepdad, who had been sitting slightly slumped and staring into space, as was his wont these days, sat bolt upright as if he’d just had an electric shock and stared at Agron almost open mouthed.  
    “Agron, don’t – don’t say that!” he pleaded, agonised. He leaned over and clumsily clasped one of Agron’s limp hands. “Don’t” he repeated, his voice cracking.  
    Agron shook his head, lacking the energy to make Alistair understand. He wished he had been the one at the bar when the fight broke out, not because he would have died in Duro’s place, but because he wouldn’t have. Duro had been the idealist out of the two of them, Agron the pragmatist. Agron had learned years ago that you can’t save everyone, but Duro had never been convinced, so where Duro had felt the need to intervene in some stupid fucking quarrel between two strangers who meant nothing to him, Agron would have stepped back and let them do their worst, perhaps offered medical help if one of them had been injured, but wouldn’t have put himself at risk. He could almost see it: himself being pushed away by the injured party, shrugging and making his way back to their table, Duro demanding to know why he hadn’t helped, the two of them bickering... And all the while, Duro would be alive and whole, his parents would still be at home living their lives, Agron would be at work, Duro would be preparing for the new school year in August... But instead Agron sat on his sofa and watched his stepfather sit and stare into space, a shell, while his mother – whom he had never seen really cry before – burst into uncontrollable tears several times a day. All for the sake of a round of drinks.


	9. Death Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News of another death highlights the differences between Agron and his mum

            The man who had swung the bottle died in ITU a week after Duro died. The police rang Agron’s mum to let her know, and she cried after she had hung up the phone, which Agron found faintly puzzling.

            “Two people didn’t have to die,” his mum sniffed, as his stepdad sat next to her with his arm around her.

            “Strictly speaking, _no one_ had do die.” Agron pointed out tartly.

            “You know what I mean.” his mum said, scowling, and Agron dropped it, even though he felt like in an important way he didn’t.

 

            Journalists got hold of Agron’s phone number, and spent a few days trying to get him to comment on what was going on, but ultimately got bored of being told to go fuck themselves in ever-more-creative ways.

            “You know they can quote you on that?” his stepdad said drily, after one particularly colourful outburst.

            “They won’t.” Agron said, but even if they did he didn’t care. He made the mistake of telling Spartacus about it, and had to sit through an indignant nine minute monologue about the many crimes of the tabloid press. He considered hanging up mid-speech, playing his “my brother just died” card to get out of acting like a decent human being or having manners, but Spartacus was still his best friend even though Duro had died nine days ago, so he sat with his legs slung over the arm of his armchair and made the occasional “I’m listening” noise and occasionally nudged his mother with his foot to stop her falling asleep on the sofa.

 

            The killer’s mum sold her story to one of the papers, and Agron was totally disgusted, but his mum bought the paper, read the story, and cried.

            “I don’t get you.” Agron announced, leaning against the kitchen counter with his eight millionth cup of tea of the day (or that’s what it felt like) while his mum sat at the table with the exploitative, ghoulish story spread out in front of her, and sniffled.

            “This woman lost her son. I lost my son. I feel for her.”

            “Her son killed your son!”

            “It was an accident!”

            “I mean, I suppose it technically was, but he _was_ trying to kill someone else at the time.”

            “Nah. These kids, they swing knives and shit around because they don’t think people actually die of getting stabbed, they just want to look tough and give people a scare.”

            “He wasn’t a kid, he was nineteen!”

            “When you were nineteen you still had power rangers sheets.”

            “Ironically!” Agron looked to his stepdad for support but Alistair snorted “You’re on your own mate” and made a swift exit.

            “Traitor!” Agron shouted after him. He looked down at his mum. She was looking at him clear-eyed, sniffling no more.

            “It didn’t bring Duro back.”

            “What?”

            “That boy dying, it didn’t bring Duro back, it didn’t make anything better. It didn’t help. It’s just one more mother who doesn’t have her son any more.”


	10. Duro Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agron keeps seeing Duro around

            Agron rounded the corner in the supermarket, and almost had a heart attack when he saw Duro critically inspecting a tub of houmous. Then he blinked, and realised that it wasn’t Duro at all, just another guy with curly dark hair. He shook his head and hastily walked away, even though in doing so he walked away from the part of the shop he was trying to get to. He’d googled it, and apparently it was really common after a bereavement to think you were seeing the person everywhere, but it was still really fucking creepy.


	11. Flat

            Kai got in touch again a couple of weeks later (fifteen days after Duro died, to be precise) wondering if he should start boxing things up in Duro’s room, or if Agron and his parents would prefer to do it all themselves. He was at pains to stress that he just wanted to help if he could, that there was no rush, but it reminded them that Duro’s room in his shared flat needed cleared out, and a few days later they were down there, armed with bin bags and steeling themselves.

            It was both not as bad as they thought and infinitely worse. They had agreed beforehand that, even though ultimately most, if not all, of it would end up in a charity shop, they didn’t need to commit to giving it all up now, and if they couldn’t bring themselves to let go of something, they could just hold on to it, and get rid of it properly at a later date, when it was all a bit less raw. But it turned out that some of Duro’s stuff was easier to part with – his clothes, for instance, they were all happy to donate, and started stuffing them in bin bags.

            “Won’t we need something to bury him in?” Agron’s mum asked.

            “Does it matter?” his stepdad asked. “I mean, we’re not doing an open casket, are we?”

            “Definitely not.” Agron said, with an air of finality.

            “Still, though.” his mum said, and took a suit out of Duro’s cupboard, inspecting it critically. “Lets keep this, just in case.”

            That’s the suit Duro wore to his graduation, Agron thought, tears pricking at his eyes, and looked down hastily.

            Stuff from Duro’s degree they were mostly happy to get rid of, too. Kai took custody of all the textbooks and study guides Duro had collected over the years, and promised to put them in the “Free to a good home” box at the university library. Without discussing it, they piled Duro’s handwritten notes and essays into bags and boxes for Agron’s parents to take home. None of them could bring themselves to part with something that Duro had laboured over, written by hand, doodled in the corner of. Not yet.

            They fought over Duro’s books – both Agron and Alistair were convinced that the copy of _Sunset Song_ had been stolen from them, and there was some semi-good natured bickering before Alistair nobly allowed Agron to take it in exchange for Duro’s Game of Thrones books. Agron took Duro’s Harry Potters, which the two of them had shared growing up, and Linda took his Famous Five books, which none of them had realised he still had. His DVDs went to Alistair and Linda, since Agron just streamed everything, and Agron took his laptop. None of them wanted his speakers, so they offered them to Kai and Diona, who had surfaced out of Kai’s room late on in the morning, looking wan and hugging a cup of tea while wearing a giant cardigan in a way that Agron found vaguely irritating. The two of them demurred, and Diona’s eyes filled with tears, and Agron had to work very hard not to roll his eyes. His mum was more gentle.

            “Is there anything you would like? As a memento?” she asked kindly, as Diona hastily wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

            Diona hesitated, and Agron braced himself for a back and forth of Diona demurring, his mother insisting. But Diona’s gaze drifted to the pile of books in front of Agron, to the Oliver Sacks book Agron had got Duro for his Christmas one year while Duro was still at medical school.

            “I... I don’t know... the only thing is...” she reached hesitantly in the direction of the book. “Duro was always on at me to read this, and I never did, so...” she picked it up, very hesitantly, as if still asking permission.

            No! Agron shouted in his mind. I got it for him! It’s mine!

            “In that case you should definitely take it,” he said instead. “I’d say he’d probably prefer you to have it.”

            Diona nodded wetly, then muttered an apology and dashed out of the room and across the room to Kai’s room. Agron’s feelings must have shown on his face, because his mother put her hand on his to catch his attention.

            “It must be hard for her,” she said “Being across the hall from this room that’s... just the same as when he was alive.”

            And Agron realised that it probably was, and all of a sudden he forgave her for the half-formed offence that she hadn’t really committed, except in his imagination.


	12. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Agron's mum and stepdad go home, things only get worse. See chapter notes at the end if you need details.

            With a car full of Duro’s stuff, Agron’s mum and stepdad drove home, promising to return to see Agron soon, once they had tidied a few things up at home, and definitely in time for the inquest result. Agron’s mum and stepdad both hugged him extra-tight, and his mum made him promise to phone her every day. Then she kissed his cheek and turned to get in the car. Agron waved as the car pulled away, then turned and walked back up to his flat.

            He hadn’t realised how much of a help it was to have his parents around until they were gone. Left to his own devices to sit around the house, he found that he couldn’t settle to anything, couldn’t focus enough to read a book or watch TV or cook a meal, so he paced irritably or sat and stared into space, brooding. He was bone-tired, but didn’t want to sleep because his initial nightmares about Duro had grown both more frequent and more vivid, and whenever he slept he woke gasping and panicking, and more tired than before. His mum always asked how he was doing when they spoke on the phone, but he didn’t want to worry her. Spartacus phoned him most days, and he got texts from other people, but he didn’t feel up to seeing anyone, and always demurred when anyone suggested. He never actually told Spartacus that his mum and stepdad had gone home, allowed him to think that he had people around him when he didn’t.

           

            Not having his parents around gave Agron more time to dwell on things, which he recognised was possibly not a good thing, but made no effort to remedy. Agron knew that he wasn’t the only person in the world who didn’t believe in an afterlife, but he thought there probably weren’t that many who genuinely didn’t like the idea of one. He recalled a drunk conversation in medical school with Crixus and Spartacus, where it emerged that, though the three of them were all atheists, Crixus and Spartacus both believed that there was “something else” after death, while Agron didn’t.

            “But doesn’t it sound boring?” He asked, taking another swig of beer. “Hanging about for _all eternity_? What would you do? And what if no one you know has died? Are you just cuttin’ about on your own in Heaven like Billy-no-mates?”

            “You’re fuckin’ weird” was the only response he got from Crixus, while Spartacus just frowned at him. They had changed the subject shortly afterwards.

            Duro didn’t know anyone who had died, Agron thought to himself, on one of the intermittent days when he didn’t drink and tried to cook himself some real food. Grandad Bauer had died when they were little, but they didn’t really know him. Grandad Smith had died before they were born, and both grannies were still hanging on. Unless you counted childhood pets (and Agron understood that most philosophies held that animals weren’t supposed to get into the afterlife) Duro wouldn’t have anyone to hang out with. Agron had a sudden vision of Duro alone, somewhere dark and cold, wanting his mum, and all of a sudden found himself crouching on the floor, holding the top of the kitchen counter the way he had held the rail at the side of Duro’s bed, his pasta boiling over on the stove.

            The following day, making his way round the supermarket, Agron abruptly felt cold dread wash over him, and suddenly he was back in the pub, kneeling over Duro and feeling his lifeblood wash over his wrist onto the floor. He could see Duro’s grey face, smell the blood – that smell of rust and death. He was abruptly jerked back to reality when, as his legs started to give way, the handle of the shopping trolley jabbed into his solar plexus. Blinking, he saw the white tiles and flickering strip lighting of the supermarket come back into focus, a few fellow shoppers having drifted to a halt to stare at him, wondering if he was OK. Hastily, he straightened up, shook his head, and started to walk away. Something made him turn his head, and he realised that his little flashback had happened next to the butcher’s counter.

            Blood. It was the smell of blood.

 

Over the following days and weeks, the number of things that could make Agron relive the worst night of his life in vivid technicolour only increased. Crowds of people, the sound of chairs scraping on wooden floors, people shouting. His world kept getting smaller as he tried to avoid anything that could conceivably remind him of what had happened.

 

Agron knew that he had drunk too much. It had started out small – he had taken out a beer while he watched a rugby game, but without anyone to talk to, the mechanical movement of the can to his mouth had resulted in him drinking a six pack in two hours. He had been pleasantly surprised to find that being drunk made everything sort of... indistinct, dulled the sharp edges of his emotions. It was like taking a holiday from the inside of his head. But over the last few days (it had started on day nineteen, they were now on day 22) Agron had found it harder and harder to reach that sweet spot of drunk enough to feel fuzzy and indistinct, but not drunk enough to get maudlin. Now he appeared to have bypassed maudlin and found himself flat out drunk. He realised he was going to be sick, and tried to make his way to the bathroom, but slipped, and the impact of falling to his knees was enough to make him vomit. He had slept about four hours in the last three nights – staying up watching TV to avoid the vivid dreams about Duro’s final moments – and as he tried to get up his head swam. By the force of sheer willpower he found his way to his feet, but suddenly the floor was rushing up to meet him, and he found himself on all fours again. Resigning himself to his fate, Agron arranged himself on his side in a rough approximation of the recovery position and let unconsciousness take him.

 

            “Agron?”

            Agron screwed up his face. His head hurt, his mouth tasted like a toilet, there was an overwhelming smell of bleach and... was his hair wet?

            “Agron!”

            The voice was getting more agonised. He recognised it, he knew he did, but the information was getting stuck halfway between his subconscious and conscious mind.

            “Agron, please wake up.”

            Something dropped on Agron’s face. Water, not very much. Warm. Body temperature. Oh shit! Suddenly he knew whose voice it was, and why his hair was wet.

            He opened his eyes and saw his mum’s face looking down at him, her face puffy from crying. A tear balanced at the end of her nose, and fell, and Agron closed his eyes as he felt it fall on his cheek.

            “Hi mum.” he said, pathetically.

            “Agron, what have you _done_?” his mum demanded, sounding broken.

            “Um.” Agron replied, because it was the best he could do.

 

            “Shower.” Agron’s mum said, and obediently he took the proffered towel and went and made his way to the bathroom.

            “Eat.” she said, when Agron emerged, slightly damp and feeling quite a lot better, and Agron shook his head, his stomach roiling even at the sight of toast.

            “Eat.” She repeated, in a voice that would brook no opposition, and cautiously, delicately, Agron began to nibble at the toast his mother had made for him in his own kitchen.

            “Drink.” She said, planting a pint glass of water in front of him, and obediently he lifted it and started drinking.

            “Sleep.” She said, and Agron didn’t argue, just stood and started making his way to the sofa, where his mother grabbed his arm and steered him towards the bedroom.

            “No. You sleep in the bed, I’ll take the sofa.”

            “But-“

            “No buts.”

            Agron let his mum lead him through to his bedroom and tuck the covers under his chin. He didn’t tell her that he had been afraid to go to sleep because of the nightmares, because he wasn’t any more.

            Agron woke some time later with a headache, desperately needing a piss. He emerged from the bathroom and saw that the light in the sitting room was off. Cautiously, he stuck his head round the door, and found his mother, not asleep as he had thought he would find her, but sitting in the dark, staring into space.

            “Mum?” Agron felt absurdly young. His mum turned her head.

            “Agron. There you are. Come here.”

            Feeling distinctly like he was twelve years old again, Agron crossed the room, only dragging his feet a little bit, and sat next to his mother.

            For a while they just sat in silence, before his mum asked, in a steely voice:

            “Are you going to tell me what the hell’s going on?”

            Agron waited for her to interrupt him before he had even got started, to start telling him off, but she was silent, and he realised he was actually going to have to explain.

            “I...” he began, and could not continue.

            His mum looked at him stonily.

            “I... I started having nightmares after Duro died.”

            “So did I.” And you don’t see me passed out drunk on my kitchen floor, was the unspoken other half.

            “And... I was in the supermarket, walking past the butcher’s counter, and I smelled... I smelled blood, and... I saw...”

            Agron’s mum was staring at him, frowning slightly. He had a feeling that she had guessed the rest of what he was going to say.

            “I saw... Duro.”

            “In the supermarket?”

            “No! Not... not that time. I saw him another time, but it turned out to be another guy who looked like him.

            Agron’s mum studied him, looking half-suspicious.

            “So what happened this time?”

            “I saw... it was like when it happened. When he – I...” Agron cleared his throat. “It was like I was back there. I was in the pub, kneeling down next to Duro, and he was...” Agron’s voice cracked, and his mum leaned over and put her arm around his shoulders. Agron leaned over and rested his head on his mum’s head.

            “It was exactly the same!” he whispered “Every – every _detail_!”

            Linda lifted her hand off Agron’s shoulder to stroke the side of his head, humming comfortingly. Then she leaned slowly away from him, reaching out for the box of tissues that had taken up residence on the coffee table, and passing one to Agron, who wiped his eyes and blew his nose, businesslike. His mum waited patiently for him to stop faffing and pay attention to her again.

            “Do you remember any of the Psych you learned at medical school?” she enquired, conversationally.

            “Bits and pieces.”

            “Anything about PTSD?”

            Agron’s stomach tightened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains descriptions of flashbacks and nightmares from someone suffering from some form of PTSD. I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist, everything is from internet research, and I apologise if there are any inaccuracies.


	13. Mira

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agron unexpectedly bumps into an old friend.

Agron tapped his foot, wishing he had remembered to bring a book, or that he had bothered to download Angry Birds onto his phone like everyone kept telling him, or fucking _something._ Looking up at the clock, he realised that his theoretical appointment time had been half an hour ago. Realising, with a guilty start, that he had kept patients waiting longer than this in his time, he sighed heavily and slumped so far down in his chair that he almost slid to the floor. A girl sitting opposite him was watching him, and smiled. He smiled back at her, and was surprised when she stiffened in her seat and looked fixedly at the opposite wall, away from Agron. Frowning slightly, Agron wondered why she was so frightened, and why she was here. Maybe she was like him, maybe something had happened to her. He wondered what it was, and felt himself making assumptions based on her baggy clothes, her unbrushed hair hanging over her face, and her strained, wary expression. He hoped his assumptions were wrong.

            There was movement over at the door to the consulting rooms, the one through which the other person in the room had disappeared _fucking ages ago._ It wasn’t the same doctor who appeared this time though. This was a youngish woman, about Agron’s age, with long brown hair and tanned skin. He was sure he had seen her before, but couldn’t quite place her. She didn’t call out anyone’s name, simply scanning the room and, making eye contact with the bundled-up girl, smiling and beckoning her. The girl stood up with a small, relieved smile, and began to make her way across the room, but Agron barely noticed, too busy studying the young doctor and trying to place her. Perhaps noticing his eyes on her, she glanced his way and shot him a small smile, and Agron suddenly knew her. He was sure his abject surprise must show on his face – he was pretty sure he felt his jaw drop open – but she didn’t seem surprised to see him. Turning to greet her patient, she ushered her through the door, closing it behind her and leaving Agron alone in the waiting room.

            _Fuck me._ he thought. _Mira._

 

Coming home from rugby on Saturday morning, they were always simultaneously exhausted and buzzing with adrenaline. And fucking starving. They dragged themselves up the stairs to their flat, debating among the three of them whether or not to go out and buy more food, since they couldn’t remember what they already had in the flat. Resigning themselves to digging around in the cupboards for scraps, they all shoved into the kitchen to find Mira, wearing Spartacus’ hoodie over her trackies, prodding something in a frying pan.

            “Hi guys.” she smiled over her shoulder. “I made pancakes.”

            Spartacus smiled, and crossed the room to give his girlfriend a kiss, as the others both groaned.

            “You’re so fucking jammy.” Crixus complained. He turned to Agron. “Toast?” he asked. Agron sighed deeply, looking at the pancakes.

            “Yeah, I s’pose.”

            Mira looked confused.

            “Um. I made enough for everybody. Unless you guys don’t want…?”

            They all looked at the stack of pancakes at the side of the hob. One each, if they all had. Plus a couple for Agron and Crixus to get in a punch up over.

            “I think that might be a bit optimistic.” Spartacus said gently.

            Mira looked from one of them to the other in confusion, before comprehension dawned.

            “Ohhhh! Yeah, this isn’t all.”

            She reached for the oven gloves and opened the oven door, taking out a big plate on which there was an enormous stack of pancakes. Crixus’ face lit up, and Agron crossed the room in three strides, shoving Spartacus carelessly out of the way so he could wrap his arms tightly around Mira.

            “I love you.” he mumbled into her hair, and meant it. She laughed, and wriggled slightly, so that her mouth and nose weren’t smushed against his chest, and she could breathe. He didn’t let go.

            “Jealous?” Crixus asked, grinning at Spartacus.

            “Oddly, no.” Spartacus said drily, shaking his head at his friends.

            “You should ditch Spartacus and go out with me.” Agron said unexpectedly, and the others all laughed.

            “You sure about that?” Mira asked, her voice still a bit muffled.

            “Yeah. I mean, I’m not gunna want to have sex with you, but you can make pancakes and I can… eat them.”

            “Mmm, tempting…” Mira sounded like she was trying not to laugh. “But I think I’ll have to pass.”

            “Awww!” Agron sounded genuinely wounded.

            “Agron, let her go so we can eat.” Crixus said sternly, and for once Agron didn’t do the opposite of what Crixus said just to annoy him. He let Mira go, and the four of them sat around and ate pancakes, ripping the piss out of each other as they did so. It was a good day.

 

The other doctor, the older one, appeared at the door Mira had just disappeared through.

            “Agron Bauer?”

            Agron stood up, took a deep breath, and crossed the waiting room to meet him.

            “Hi, Agron, my name’s Dr Forrester. Please, follow me.”

 

Agron felt like he had been through a fucking mangle. He blinked a couple of times as he emerged from Dr Forrester’s office. Thinking he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned and saw Mira emerging from the office next door, a stack of notes balanced in her arms.

            “Hello, stranger!” he said, grinning, and stepped towards her. She smiled and shifted her notes into one arm so she could extend the other one to hug him. She didn’t seem surprised to see him, any more than she had been in the waiting room.

            “Where have you been?” he demanded. “I haven’t seen you in yonks.” Neither of them mentioned the fact that, after she and Spartacus had split up, she had disappeared off the face of the earth so completely that they’d felt the need to waylay one of her flatmates to make sure she was still alive.

            “Sorry.” she said. “I don’t know what happened. I didn’t go far, honest.”

            Agron didn’t want to go home to his empty flat.

            “You want to get a coffee or something?” he asked, as if it had been a few weeks since they had last spoken, not nine years.

            She looked surprised at that.

            “Uh. Yeah! Sure. Two seconds.”

            Mira was one of the very few people Agron had ever met who, when they said two seconds, actually meant two seconds, not ten minutes. He considered this to be a sign of someone with their life together, and had tried without success to cultivate it within himself. She ducked back into her room, audibly chucked the notes on a solid surface, and picked something else up, which turned out to be a bag. Rummaging through it, she took out a set of keys, with which she locked the door. She looked up at him.

            “When you said coffee, you meant tea, right?”

            “Aye.”

            “Good.” She started towards the doors to the waiting room, jerking her head to indicate that he should follow. “C’mon. Coffee shop’s this way.”

           

It was funny, Agron thought as he walked beside Mira through the unfamiliar corridors, how having actual problems rearranged your priorities. Any other time, he was sure, he would be feeling awkward, walking along in silence with Mira, trying to think of something to say and unable to come up with anything sufficiently innocuous. Now, however, it was as if there was no room in his head for petty social awkwardness. He couldn’t be arsed thinking about how weird it was that they hadn’t talked in many years and were now going to sit down and have a cuppa like old friends. He just wanted to avoid going home and talking to his mother for as long as possible. Mira didn’t seem too bothered by the silence either, though that could have been Agron being obtuse.

            They both bought mugs of tea and sat down at a table, still without speaking. The café was almost empty – just a couple of people sitting at the other end of the room and ignoring them. Mira stirred her tea absentmindedly for a moment before, with a visible effort, raising her head to look at Agron.

            “Um.” she said and, realising for the first time that she was struggling to say something, Agron raised an eyebrow at her, inviting her to continue.

            “Um. Do you ever get a referral letter, and just start reading it without looking at the patient’s name?”

            “Um. Yeah?” Agron wondered where this was going, and then suddenly realised. “Oh!”

            “I’m really sorry! The first line said something about you being a surgical trainee, and I thought: Oh, I wonder if I know him, and looked at your name and…” she stopped for a moment, her face spasming the way faces do when people are trying not to cry. “And… I’m really sorry about your brother, Agron!”

            She broke down, hiding her face in her hands as her shoulders shook with sobs. Glancing over at the other people, Agron noticed that they seemed completely unperturbed. Maybe it was a common occurrence for people at this hospital to break down in tears in the café.

            “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Mira frantically wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Fuck, I promised I wouldn’t do this.”

            Agron felt a rush of tenderness towards her.

            “Hey, it’s OK.” He reached out and rubbed her shoulder.

            “You kidding? You shouldn’t be comforting me, it should be the other way around!”

            “Ah, it makes a nice change.” he said, getting up. “I’ll get you a napkin.”

            “No, Agron, you don’t have to – “

            “I want to – sit down, woman!”

            Mira obediently sat, and Agron walked over to the counter again to get some napkins. Before he could take any, the lady behind the till picked some up and held them out to him.

            “Cheers.” he said, with an awkward smile. The lady smiled back, and Agron realised that, for once, he wasn’t the object of pity, someone else was.

            It felt weird, being the normal one again.


	14. Funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duro's funeral

A month later found Agron sitting with his mother and stepfather on his living room floor, family photos spread all over the floor, trying to organise a slideshow for Duro’s belated memorial.

            “I mean, I hadn’t thought about it.” Agron said, inserting another picture into the slideshow on his computer. “But I never thought Microsoft Powerpoint would be involved in funeral planning.”

            “If you have a better idea I’d love to hear it.” his mother replied, leaning over to consult with Alistair about the inclusion of a particular picture of Agron and Duro as kids. Agron rolled his eyes.

            Agron had been seen by Mira’s colleague, Lucius (Dr Forrester to you, he reminded himself) who felt that, though his symptoms fitted a Dysfunctional Grief Reaction better than true PTSD, he would still benefit from Trauma-Focused CBT. Agron had always vaguely approved of CBT, remembering from medical school that it had a good evidence base, and his surgeon’s mind instinctively understanding the structure of CBT better than the other, more in depth talking therapies. He had been unprepared for how profoundly stupid he had felt, being asked to close his eyes and visualise things. Given that CBT worked in the mind, and his mind was telling him that it was stupid and embarrassing, he had wondered if this would affect the efficacy of it, and had expressed this concern to his mum, who had told him to stop bloody thinking so much. He had never foreseen a time when he would be grateful to be snapped at by his mum.

            It seemed to be working (though how it could work after only two sessions was beyond him) – he’d only had the one flashback, the nightmares were getting less frequent (down from 100% of times he went to sleep to 80%), and the very fact that they were getting less frequent, the fact that there was light at the end of the tunnel, was making it possible for him to be philosophical. He was almost cheerful about the prospect of going to sleep, despite the four out of five chance that he would wake up drenched in sweat, with horror clawing at his stomach. He thought most of the benefit was from the CBT, but some of the reduction in existential despair, the minor increase in ease, the occasional flicker of hope, might be partially down to the fact that his mum and Alistair knew what was going on now, and he wasn’t going through it alone. Spartacus knew as well now, and as the friend of his whom his mum has always most approved of, he was the one who got updates on his parents’ movements, who always knew when Agron was going to be home alone and called or texted him to make sure he was OK. It was the sort of thing Duro would have been put up to, if he weren’t the reason all of this was happening.

            Agron picked up the pile of selected photos and took them through to the study, where the scanner that his parents, no matter what they said, couldn’t work, lived. He had only scanned half a dozen when a shadow in the doorway made him turn and nearly jump out of his skin.

            “Tea, Agron?” his stepdad asked, then stepped forwards, frowning. “Are you allright, Ag? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

            “I’m fine.” Agron said, smiling awkwardly, and Alistair hesitated momentarily before retreating, glancing over his shoulder. Agron shook his head. For a moment, caught in the light from the hall, the greying fair hair and skinny build of his stepfather had looked like Duro’s dark curls and stockier frame. Baby steps.

 

The day of the funeral, Agron woke up early, like he never normally did, and stared at the ceiling, wondering if Nick would make it. He had made noises about coming over earlier, for the memorial services which had happened in the week immediately after Duro’s death, while they waited for the post mortem, and for the police to release his body, but had ended up staying in the States for work. This, the “real” funeral, was his last chance. He said he was coming, Agron’s mum insisted he meant it, and he was going to stand with them outside the church to greet the mourners, though he wasn’t going to make a speech at the wake – that was going to be Alistair. Agron had his doubts, and resented that his dad was taking up valuable brain-space that should all go to Duro.

            Two hours later, Agron, his mum and stepfather were all standing in the front room in their funeral clothes, surreptitiously checking their watches even though Nick wasn’t due for another twenty minutes.

            “This feels familiar” Agron joked, and his mum shot him a sharp look that made him turtle his neck into his shirt. Agron’s parents lived on a quiet street without much traffic, so every time a car drove past the hair on the back of their necks stood up. A car came to a stop, seemingly outside the house, and Alistair stepped smartly over to the window, as Agron, without meaning to, retreated to the back wall.

            “It’s him.” Alistair said, and Agron honestly couldn’t tell if he was excited or filled with dread at the thought of seeing his father for the first time since he was unceremoniously ejected from Duro’s graduation dinner.

            “Are you OK, Agron?” his mum asked, frowning in concern as he pressed himself against the back wall.

            “I’m fine!” Agron said, slightly too fast, and his mother looked deeply sceptical but was distracted by the entrance of his stepfather and father.

            Agron blinked, dazzled by the light from the big picture window which lit up the two men as silhouettes. He could tell them apart by build though – his father was taller. He hesitated for a moment, probably looking right at Agron (not that he could tell) and Agron panicked for a moment, hoping his father wouldn’t approach him, and was thankful when Nick chickened out and instead hung right, approaching Agron’s mother instead.

            Able to see his father properly, Agron saw that he did seem changed from last time he had seen him, though Duro’s graduation dinner couldn’t have been more than three months earlier. He looked heavier, for starters, his belly pulling at his shirt, though his tall frame could carry it well. But more than that, he looked wan, and somehow shrunken even with the extra weight. There was something in his posture, in the set of his shoulders, as if his habitual arrogance was missing. He hugged Linda, and stepped back to talk to her, his expression concerned – was he actually asking how she was? It occurred to Agron that it was perhaps a little unfair to be surprised that his father (self aggrandising though he might be) might be enquiring after the welfare of a grieving mother at her son’s funeral. Deciding that, all else being equal, he would rather approach his father than have his father approach him, he braced himself and stepped forward. He noticed as he approached that his mother shot his father a warning look, and seemed to hiss something to him, but concentrated all his efforts on being civil.

            Nick turned to him, looking apprehensive, and Agron felt momentarily gratifid to be making him uncomfortable.

            “Nikolas.” he said, as cordially as he could manage, and his mother visibly winced. Nick, for his part, blinked a couple of times, but let it slide.

            “Agron.” he said. “How...” he shook his head. “I keep asking people how they are – it’s such a stupid question.”

            Agron glanced at his mother – he had assumed that she would have told Nick about the PTSD, the collapse, the psychiatrist, but apparently she had abandoned her long-held policy of ignoring his wishes for his father to know as little as possible about his life and kept schtum.

            In answer to his father’s aborted question, he shrugged.

            “Keeping going. You?”

            “Keeping going.”

            Without exactly stepping towards Agron, or raising his arms to hug him, Nick made some movement that told Agron he was going to attempt it and Agron, without exactly taking a step back, put his weight on his back foot and leaned away in a way that indicated that a hug would be unacceptable. They froze, and Agron’s mother rolled her eyes.

            “The cars are here.” Alistair said, and Agron managed to put his parents in between him and Nikolas in the movement out to the cars.

 

They drew up outside the funeral home to find swathes of mourners – the extended family members who could not be fitted into the cars, friends of Duro and Agron’s from school, and – Agron’s chest ached with gratitude at the sight of them – Spartacus and Sura. He had told them about the funeral, but had not expected them to go to all the trouble of arranging time off work, organising cover, and travelling all this way to support him. Agron, his parents, and Nikolas, lined up at the doorway to the – chapel? What was the non-religious name for it? – and the mourners filed in, some pausing to express condolences, some not. Agron and his parents entered last, and sat in the front row. As a family of devout non-believers, they had opted for a humanist ceremony, but Agron could not think of non-religious words for any of it. The minister, for want of an irreligious word, began with a run-through Duro’s life, sprinkled with little anecdotes about him, making reference to his strong bond with Alistair and the role he had played in Duro’s life, while glossing over Nikolas’ near-total absence; making reference to the bravery in his final action in defending a stranger in a barfight, without dwelling on the violence of his death or, Agron was grateful to hear, bringing Agron too much into it. It was artfully done, and Agron was surprised by how upbeat it was – how this man, who had never met Duro, was able to conjure up such a picture of him, to express such affection for him, and to bring a smile to people’s faces even as they stifled sobs. Agron thought he understood, really, for the first time, how a funeral could be a celebration of a life.

            Following this, the plan was for Alistair to read something. Initially Linda had been asked, but she thought she wouldn’t be able to. Agron likewise doubted his ability to remain calm enough to get through a reading, and flatly refused to allow Nikolas to be asked, so Alistair stepped up. Now though, as the minister stepped to one side and smiled encouragingly at Alistair, he turned to Agron, his face a mask, his mouth half open, his chest heaving.

            “I-“

            Agron looked at his mum, who blinked at him in panic, and put a hand on Alistair’s arm, but he only shook his head at her. Nikolas, on the other side of Linda, looked up and caught Agron’s eye, and shifted forward slightly in his seat, and Agron stood up. The minister blinked, but seemed unperturbed, and smilingly drew Agron behind the lectern. Agron looked out at the chapel full of mourners, and dimly remembered giving lectures and presentations in his professional capacity, and shaking with nerves as he did so. But today he didn’t feel in the least bit nervous.

            “I’m not Alistair.” he said unnecessarily, and there was a titter. “I’m Agron, Duro’s brother.” He saw a few people turn to each other: “Is that the one who-?” but ignored them. “I – I don’t have anything prepared, I just – I feel like this is my last chance. My last chance to talk to him. Which is silly, because my last chance to talk to him was ages ago, and he- he’s gone. But after today... after today, this is the last thing we need to do. No more tidying up. No more planning. Just figuring out – figuring out how to – how to live our lives without him.” He stopped, and rubbed his wrist over his eyes. “Duro’s been my best friend since I was two. We did everything together, we lived together on and off through uni. I remember when he started medical school, how proud I was of him, but I was even prouder when he realised it wasn’t right for him and left, to find what he was really meant to do. He would have been a great teacher – he loved the kids he taught on his placements, I remember how his face lit up when he talked about them. A lot of kids have been robbed of a great teacher, a great influence in their lives. I’ve been robbed of a brother, my parents- and Alistair of course – have been robbed of a son. All of you have had him taken from you, when you should have had more time with him. But that’s not what we should think about. I gather that at these things you’re meant to be grateful for the time you did have with the person. That’s something I’ve been struggling with. So I – I don’t know who wrote this, but I keep thinking about it. It is – I think it helps, somehow. So – so here it is.” He cleared his throat and began, blindly, to recite a poem he had first heard years ago, reaching the end of each line and trusting that the next would appear in his mind despite his lack of any rehearsal.

            “Do not stand at my grave and weep

            I am not there, I do not sleep

            I am the thousand winds that blow

            I am the diamond glint on snow

            I am the sunlight on ripened grain

            I am the gentle autumn rain

            When you awake in the morning hush

            I am the swift, uplifting rush

            Of quiet birds in circling flight

            I am the soft stars that shine at night

            Do not stand at my grave and weep

            I am not there, I do not sleep       

            Do not stand at my grave and cry

            I am not there, I did not die.”

            Agron looked up. His mother was doubled over, heaving with sobs, and Alistair was holding her, shaking and wiping his face. Nikolas was biting his lower lip, tears streaming down his face. Unable to look at them any more, Agron turned to the minister.

            “Sorry, I’m sure you’ve heard that hundreds of times before” and there was another ripple of laughter.

            “Thank you, Agron.” The minister said, gesturing for him to return to his seat, which Agron gratefully took, and his mother clutched at him, burying her face in his chest.

            “Now, Agron is right, I have heard that poem before, but each time I hear it, it’s different, because each time I hear it recited by someone else, for someone else, it _is_ different. That was very beautiful, thank you again. Now, if you would all please be upstanding.”

            They all struggled to their feet, and Agron accepted a pat on the shoulder from Alistair but refused to make eye contact with Nikolas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, I have glossed over stuff I don't understand (in this case CBT) so please don't use this for medical/therapeutic advice.
> 
> I can't remember when I first heard the poem Agron recites, but it's one of my favourites. I haven't been able to track down the poet's name - as far as I can tell, it was published anonymously during or after the first world war and no one has been able to find out who wrote it. Please let me know if I'm wrong and you know who the poet is!


	15. Wake and Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wake following Duro's funeral, and Agron's return to work

The wake was at a nearby hotel, and theoretically there was no receiving line, like there had been at the funeral itself. However Agron still found himself being accosted by every mourner, who wanted to tell him what a good job he had done with his speech, and express incredulity that he hadn’t prepared it beforehand, and tell him how beautiful it was. It was difficult to resent people for missing Duro, but after a while he ducked out and found himself standing outside a side door, looking out at the car park. He leaned against the wall and tipped his head back, exhaling slowly and imagining all the tension going out of his body, and resisting the urge to roll his eyes at himself. His peace was interrupted when the side door opened, and Nikolas was suddenly there.

            They stared at each other for a moment, and Nikolas smiled nervously.

            “Everything get a bit much in there?” he asked, and for some reason the fact that he’d said something sensible and sensitive annoyed Agron more than if he’d said something stupid.

            “Mmph.” he said, refusing to make eye contact, resenting his father for forcing – forcing! – him to act like a moody adolescent.

            “Oh well.” Nikolas said, and leaned against the wall companionably, a safe distance from Agron.

            “So how – I’m not going to ask how you are, we’ve established that’s a stupid question. But... how... _were_ you? I don’t know anything about your life. You’re training in cardiothoracics, I remember that – how’s it going?”

            “Fine.” Agron didn’t even look at his father, scowling across the car park instead. There was a pause, while Nikolas waited for him to expand, but after a moment he realised he wasn’t going to, and cleared his throat.

            “And what about... outside of work? Have you got a” he cleared his throat “A boyfriend?” His voice went up a little in pitch. He was obviously trying very hard to be cool.

            “Nope.”

            There was another pause, which began awkwardly and almost extended into a comfortable silence, until Agron realised Nikolas was working up the courage to say something. Agron’s stomach tightened.

            “Agron, I – I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I didn’t come and visit more. I’m sorry I moved abroad. I’m sorry – I’m sorry I fucked it all up so badly. And I’m sorry” He swallowed visibly “I’m sorry I – I didn’t react the way I should have when I found out you were gay. I was – I was surprised, and I think – I think I was angry with myself, that I didn’t know this fundamental thing about you. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I regret it so much.”

            Agron, who had been successfully repressing his feelings about that particular incident, felt himself getting angry about it all over again, which was probably the opposite of what his father was going for.

            “OK.” he said, and his father frowned.

            “Agron...”

            “Sh.” Agron straightened, looking out over the car park. That black-clad figure hurrying towards the front entrance looked familiar, he recognised something about the posture and the gait, and that dark head of hair.

            “Mira!” he called, and Mira stopped and looked around, starting when she saw Agron.

            “Agron!” she said, and Agron sprang forward and hurried towards her as she came towards him. They met halfway across the carpark, and hugged, Agron crushing her into his chest as had been his wont in medical school.

            “I’m sorry,” she began. “I wasn’t sure if I should come, but I was here for a conference, and I heard about the funeral and where it was, and I just thought...”

            “I’m glad you’re here.” Agron said, releasing her enough that she could look up at him. “Come on, come inside.” Agron added, tugging her past Nikolas without acknowledging him, and pulling her through the door into the wake.

            He saw Spartacus and Sura across the room and made a beeline for them, Mira happily following along behind him, possibly not realising who they were heading for.

            “Look who I found!” Agron exclaimed, and Spartacus stared blankly at Mira for a moment, as Sura looked confused.       

            “Mira!” Spartacus exclaimed, pulling Mira into a hug. “Jesus, how long has it been?”

            “Knocking on ten years.” Mira said.

            “Christ we’re old.” Spartacus said, shaking his head. “Oh, this is Sura, my wife.”

            “Oh!” Mira stuck out her hand formally and Sura shook it, frowning thoughtfully at Mira. 

            “Mira... oh yes, Spartacus told me about you.”

            “Um.” Mira rubbed the back of her neck, looking very red.

            “So what are you doing with yourself these days, Mira?” Spartacus asked

            “Psychiatry.”

            “What! You’re kidding, that was the one thing you swore you would never do!”

            “What can I say, I got stuck there for four months as a junior, bitched and whined about it non stop before I started, then loved it so much I ditched CMT and applied for Psych training. What about you – still Orthopaedics?”

            “Nup. Paediatric Surgery. Sura’s a paediatric anaesthetist, that’s how we met.”

            “Wow!”

            “It’s so weird, what you think people are going to do, and where they actually end up.” Spartacus said, shaking his head.

            Agron saw his dad trying to make eye contact and subtly shifted so that he was facing away from him.

 

Back home, Agron fell into a routine of therapy, hanging out with Spartacus, and studiously ignoring his impending birthday. It was funny to think that there had been a time, not that long ago, when Agron was dreading turning thirty, leaving his twenties behind and officially becoming an old man. It was funny how having actual bad things happen to you and around you put things in perspective. Unfortunately, as well as making Agron indifferent to his landmark birthday, Duro’s death only barely two months previously made him really not in the mood to celebrate. He had grumpily accepted a phone call from his mother, telling her that her present hadn’t arrived yet. It was under his bed, and he would open it later. When he was ready, when the agony of opening birthday presents without Duro pratting about in the background was outweighed by the agony of his mother’s disappointment and hurt at his rejection of her present. Everyone else could go to hell, including Spartacus.

            He knew before answering the buzz on the intercom that it was Spartacus and Crixus.

            “Let us in!” Spartacus said cheerfully, and Agron rolled his eyes into the back of his head.

            “I told you I didn’t want to do anything for my birthday.”

            Crixus interjected:

            “I was happy to give it a miss, but Nae’s sad about how miserable you are, so let us up, you selfish cunt.”

            There followed the unmistakable sound of Crixus being elbowed in the solar plexus.

            “We brought pizza!” Spartacus said sunnily, and even through the crappy intercom phone Agron swore he could hear Crixus wheezing.

            “And we can watch Spartacus. If you really want.”

            “OK fine.” He buzzed them up.

 

            “I feel ill.” Agron said, three pizzas and eighteen chicken wings later, taking a swig of beer and belching. Not to be outdone, Crixus took a bigger swig of beer and belched louder. Agron rolled his eyes.

            “I think we’re forgetting something.” Crixus said, hauling himself to his feet and waddling purposefully over to the DVD shelf. Agron cackled, and Spartacus put his head in his hands.

            “You promised!” Agron reminded him. “You said, and it was the only reason I let you in.”

            “Not friendship?” Spartacus said mournfully.

            “Not pathetic loneliness?” Crixus enquired curiously, triumphantly holding the Spartacus DVD aloft. Agron was too busy crowing triumphantly as Spartacus put his head in his hands.

            Ever since an entire lecture hall had stood up and taken responsibility for the vandalism of a creepy professor’s office that Spartacus had committed in their second year of medical school, the student formerly known as Duncan MacAllan had been known as Spartacus, much to his chagrin. As he progressed through his career, he was progressively known more to his colleagues by the name on his birth certificate, and hated to be reminded of his idiotic exploits in medical school. Needless to say, Agron and Crixus both delighted in torturing him with reminders of the time when their year group had recreated the famous scene at the end of Spartacus, much as he would like to forget. They made him sit through the film as often as they could (increasingly rare nowadays) and always made a point of standing up and declaring “I am Spartacus!” at the film’s conclusion, just to make him squirm. This time, as the credits rolled, Agron and Crixus clinked their beers together in a rare moment of camaraderie, and Spartacus scowled at them, clearly casting about for something to say.

            “You thinking about heading back to work?” he asked, and Agron knew that Spartacus, of all people, was congenitally incapable of passive-aggression, was only asking out of genuine interest and concern, but his stomach tightened all the same.

            “Yeah, I’m going in for a meeting with Prof next week. I’m doing a phased return, going back part time at first then working up to full time. Probably won’t do any on call for the first month or so.”

            “Sweet.” Crixus said approvingly, and Agron flushed with embarrassment.

            “That sounds sensible.” Spartacus said more diplomatically. “It would be a lot to go from not being at work at all to three days on call at a time.”

            “Mmm.” Agron said, and took another pull on his beer. They sat in silence for a moment before Agron managed.

            “I feel... kinda pathetic.” he managed an affected laugh, and the glance exchanged between Spartacus and Crixus told him his nervousness had come through.

            “I mean...” he clarified “People lose relatives all the time, and manage to come back a couple of weeks later. I’ve been off for two months, and I’ve been having nightmares and flashbacks and shit, and the first couple of times I walked past a butcher’s counter, I freaked out – whoever heard of a surgeon who freaks out at the sight of blood?” He grinned to offset the panic in his voice, but could tell that it was more manic than casual, and took another pull from his beer to disguise his shakiness. Spartacus was looking at him with dire concern, and Agron was just feeling worse until Crixus, in an incredibly dismissive tone, said;

            “You watched your brother bleed out horrifically less than two months ago – give yourself a fucking break, you dumb shit.”

            “Crixus!” Spartacus exclaimed, but Agron waved away his objection

            He actually felt better.

 

            After some consideration, Agron had decided to turn up to his meeting with Professor Oenomaeus wearing jeans and a t shirt. Unprofessional, sure, but it was the unspoken code for: I’m not officially here, don’t ask me to do anything.

            Prof wasn’t in his office – in fairness, Agron was a bit early – so he wandered along to the doctors room, which was also empty, and sat on the one good chair, spinning idly. Kirsty, one of his favourite nurses, stuck her head around the door, clearly looking for the FY1.

            “Callie, could you – Agron!”

            “Hi Kirsty.” Agron stood up, smiling, and Kirsty almost bowled her over with the force of her hug.

            “I heard all about what happened, I’m so sorry Agron.”

            “Thanks. I’m sorry too, I should have got in touch, but I didn’t feel able to reply to your first text, and then it had been so long, it just seemed awkward...”

            “Never mind, Agron.” She lifted her head from his chest, and broke the hug.

            “So. I hear you’re coming back! How are you feeling?”

            “I’m fine, I’ll be fine.”

            “OK.” Kirsty reached out to touch his arm. “If you ever feel like you’re not fine...”

            “Kirsty! Just the person I was –“ A strange man, dressed in a rumpled suit and a squint tie, walked into the doctors room and stopped short at the sight of Agron. “Who are you?”   

            “Agron, this is Mr Fraser, the new consultant. Mr Fraser, this Agron, the registrar. He was off sick when you started.”

            “Oh yes! Hello.” He reached out to shake Agron’s hand. “Sorry about what happened to your brother.”

            “Um. Thanks?” Agron said, slightly puzzled.

            “Agron?” Professor Oenomaeus appeared in the doorway. “I see you’ve met Neil.”

            “Yes. Hello Professor.”

            “So when are you starting back?” Mr Fraser asked. “I can’t wait to stop doing first on call.”

            “Uh.” Agron flushed. People had been telling him to concentrate on getting better, not to worry about how the department was doing in his absence, and he thought they were right, but it was difficult to remember that when faced with such a bald enquiry.

            “We might be able to tell you that after we’ve had this meeting.” Oenomaeus said, gesturing Agron into his office.

            “Nice to meet you!” Mr Fraser said, smiling sunnily.

            “Likewise.” Agron mumbled, following Oenomaeus out.

 

Once in Oenomaeus’ office, Oenomaeus turned to Agron.

            “What do you think of Mr Fraser?” he asked.

            “Seems weird.” Agron said, and wished he had any ability to engage his brain before opening his mouth.

            “Eh, you’ll get used to him. He’s got two kids under five – I think some of his... eccentricity might be sleep deprivation. He’s a really excellent surgeon.”

            “Really?” Agron said. In the ten seconds he had spent with the man, he had got a slightly unnerving impression of scattiness – the type of scattiness that could be fatal in a surgeon.

            “Oh yes. He’s a relatively new consultant – could have done it years ago, but he did fellowships in the US and Holland, did some research into new techniques. And I know he seems...” Oenomaeus cleared his throat politely “A little shambolic, but he’s a lot sharper than he seems.”

            “Is he going to be weird about me being gay?” Agron asked. He had been worried about that when he heard the Prof was looking for a new consultant. The team they had was all very supportive, but surgeons were a notoriously macho (sexist, homophobic) bunch.

            “No. I asked the candidates that when I was doing interviews, they all said it would be fine, he was the one I believed. He had a great CV, but that was what made me hire him.”

            “Oh.” Agron didn’t quite know what to say. Professor Oenomaeus put a hand on his shoulder.

            “Even if I didn’t have a responsibility to look after my trainees, I don’t want to work with someone like that. He’s a good man. Despite his... awkwardness.”

            “I would be pissed if I became a consultant and then got stuck doing registrar on call because of a gap.”

            “I’ll talk to him. And I was thinking about bringing you back just for a few electives and clinics at first, then getting you to do an evening on call once you’ve been back for a couple of weeks...”

            Agron obediently took the chair Oenomaeus indicated, and scooted over to see the rota he had drawn up.

 

Going back was weird. The juniors had all moved round in his absence, and they had a couple of new nurses too. The people he had known for ages were briefly a bit on edge but soon relaxed, the newbies didn’t seem to know what to make of him, which annoyed him, and he found himself being standoffish and snapping at them. He had been very involved in medical student teaching before he went off, but after telling him off for scolding a less-than-knowledgeable student on the ward round, Oenomaeus suggested that he take a step back from teaching for the time being. Mr Fraser, for his part, treated Agron with the same absent-minded forbearance with which he treated everybody and, just as Oenomaeus had predicted, Agron really started to like him.

            His first day back in the operating theatre was probably the most nerve wracking, even though he had walked past the butchers counter half a dozen times the night before to make sure the smell of blood didn’t have the same terrifying effect on him any more. But as soon as he found himself back in that sterile white environment, as soon as the scrub nurse tied his mask behind his ears and he inhaled the plasticky mask-smell, he felt like he was back home after a long absence. He walked out of the theatre at the end of the day on an absurd high, even though he hadn’t done more than salvage veins the whole day, and that with Professor Oenomaeus sitting unobtrusively in the theatre, just in case.

            Unexpectedly, he bumped into Spartacus on his way to the changing rooms.

            “What are you doing in the grown up hospital?” he asked, grinning, but Spartacus was frowning.

            “What’s your dad’s name?”

            “Why?”

            “Sura got an email – they’re getting a new head of anaesthetics. I forwarded it to you.”

            Agron took out his phone and found the relevant email.

            _We are pleased to announce the appointment of a new Head of the Department of Anaesthetics, Dr Nikolas Bauer..._ ”

            Agron looked up at Spartacus, incredulous.

            “No...” he said.

           

            “Did you know about this?” Agron demanded, on the phone to his mother later that night.

            “Of course not, Agron, I would have told you! And for what it’s worth, he hasn’t phoned me in ages. Though he did text me asking for your phone number. Maybe I should have given it to him. You would have got a heads up.”

            “Ugh.” Agron flopped down on the sofa, his head in one hand. “This is going to be a nightmare.”

            “You know, lots of children of doctors become doctors. There are loads of people who work in the same hospital as one or other of their parents, and they seem to make it work!”

            “Yeah, but...” Agron broke off with a frustrated noise.

            “Do you want his number? To have a chat with him, set some boundaries?”

            “No.”

            “You sure? Oh, never mind.”

            They talked about other things for a while before they hung up, and Agron had put his phone down and was staring at the ceiling when he got a text. Picking up his phone again, he saw that his mother had shared a contact: Nick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as far as I can tell, an FY1 is the same as an intern. Broadly.


	16. Nikolas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nikolas starts work at Agron's hospital. Chaos ensues

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Professor Oenomaeus who made the connection – Agron had told him at some point that his dad was a GP, and hadn’t clarified that by dad he meant stepdad, and his biological father was an anaesthetist. Prof had seen that the newly appointed head of anaesthetics had the same last name as Agron and assumed they weren’t related - Bauer wasn’t that unusual a name. It was Mr Fraser, of all people, who asked Agron if the Dr Bauer who was starting in Anaesthetics next month was a relative.

            “Uh. Yup.” Agron said, suddenly becoming very interested in the pre-op workup he was working on, that he could have done in his sleep.

            “Oh? What kind of relative – he’s not your dad is he?”

            “Agron’s father is a GP.” Professor Oenomaeus said, at the same time Agron nodded. He kept looking at the paperwork for several long seconds, aware of Professor Oenomaeus and Mr Fraser looking first at each other, then at the back of Agron’s head. Guiltily, he turned around and looked at them, flushing.

            “You told me your father was a GP.” Professor Oenomaeus said.

            “He’s actually my stepdad. This is my... biological father, I guess.”

            Professor Oenomaeus and Mr Fraser stared at him some more.

            “I take it you’re not close.” Mr Fraser said bluntly.

            “Nope.” Agron said, turning back to his task. He heard Mr Fraser, apparently happy with this explanation, leave the room. But Professor Oenomaeus stayed until Agron turned and looked at him again.

            “We’ll talk some other time.” Professor Oenomaeus said.

 

Agron had reassured himself that, since Nikolas hadn’t worked in the UK for twenty-odd years, there would be a massive delay as he got all his paperwork in order, was reinstated on the medical register and all that shit. But to his dismay, the date given for him starting work was only two months hence, and there were no delays. Two weeks before Nikolas was due to start work he got a text from an unfamiliar number. _Hi Agron. I just landed in the UK yesterday – feeling very jet lagged! I’m living surrounded by boxes at the moment. Would you like to meet up for dinner sometime this week – my treat! Love, Dad_

            Reading it Agron felt a wave of hatred so strong it made him feel physically sick – he actually had to put his phone down and walk around the room a couple of times before he was calm enough to type a reply.

            _How did you get this number?_

            _From your mother._

            Agron threw his phone down on the table in disgust, and thought about phoning his mother and shouting at her, about changing his phone number. But then he would have to give his new number to people at work, to the hospital switchboard. He would have to explain to people why he had a new number, and he didn’t think he could bring himself to lie and say he lost his phone, but he didn’t love the idea of telling the truth either. And then his new number would be on the hospital directory, which his dad – _Nikolas_ – could look up as soon as he started work... He sat down on his sofa and rubbed his hand over his face a few times. Deciding he needed to distract himself, he picked up his phone to text Spartacus, but as soon as he opened the Messenger app he saw the messages from Nikolas. Scowling, he deleted the conversation. 

 

Agron looked forward with trepidation to Nikolas’ first day. He was on high alert on his way in, on the lookout for tall, mousy-haired middle aged men who were not the spitting image of Agron, no matter what his mother said. He thought he was safe when he made it onto the ward, but when he was sitting in the doctors room looking over the consent form for one of the pre op patients, he heard a familiar voice saying “I’m looking for Agron?” and his skin prickled as he heard one of the nurses pointing him in the correct direction. The FY1 who was sitting at the desk next to him looked sideways at him, puzzled.

            “Oh hi Agron,” he heard his father’s voice say, and he seriously considered just continuing to work and ignoring him, but instead he spun his chair around and gazed stonily at Nikolas.

            “What do you want?” he asked, his voice dripping with malice. Nikolas looked taken aback.

            “Nothing – I – I just wanted to say hello”

            “Hello.” Agron said. There was a brief pause,

            “Goodbye.” Agron said, and turned back to his work. He could feel his father still standing behind him.

            “Why are you doing this?” he asked, and Agron felt a stab of guilt.

            “I can’t be arsed,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

            “With this whole bloody pantomime, of you pretending you’ve changed, pretending you really mean it, when really you just feel guilty about Duro. And as soon as I fall for it, as soon as we have one nice interaction, you’ll feel better about yourself and bail, and I don’t hear from you again for another... what was it, ten years?”

            Nikolas looked stricken

            “That’s not what’s happening. I don’t feel – well, I don’t _just_ feel guilty about Duro.” I want us to talk.” Nikolas said. “I want us to have a relationship again. I want us to be like a father and son, not like strangers.”

            “We haven’t had a relationship since I was nine.”

            “It’s never too late...”

            “Yes it is. I’m not a kid, I’m a thirty fucking year old man, I don’t need you. You can’t parent someone in retrospect, you’ve missed your chance.” Nikolas said nothing, just stood there looking like he’d had all the stuffing knocked out of him.

            “Just go home.” Agron said, and turned back to his work.

            “I am come home.”

            Agron turned his head, saw the set, determined look on his father’s face, and his heart sank.

 

            “Hi Agron!” Nikolas said cheerfully, as the gang of anaesthetists he was leading passed the Cardiothoracic Surgery ward round in the corridor. Agron actually, honest-to-goodness snarled, and sped up, putting more distance between him and his father, who was retreating in the opposite direction, totally unconcerned with his ability to ruin Agron’s day with a simple greeting. He was aware of the rest of the ward round hurrying to catch up with him, and braced himself for their curiosity.

            “Is everything all right, Agron?” Professor Oenomaeus asked.

            “Yes! Fine, professor.”

            “It doesn’t seem fine.” Mr Fraser said, and even though it happened behind his head, Agron _felt_ the sharp look the Professor shot at Mr Fraser.

 

Both of them managed to corner Agron later on. Two very different conversations.

          “Is your relationship with your father going to cause problems for the department?”

            “What? No! Also, what relationship.”

            “All right. The sight of your fath-of Dr Bauer makes you so angry you can’t even speak. He is the head of Anaesthetics – not a department we want to piss off. Are we going to have a problem?”

            Agron looked at his feet.

            “No. He’s not a cardiac anaesthetist, so it’s not like he’s ever going to anaesthetise for us. And I can control myself, it’s just...” 

            “Just what?”

            “I wish he wouldn’t try to act all buddy-buddy with me after he spent so long pretending he didn’t have any kids.”

            Oenomaeus studied him. He didn’t look entirely unsympathetic.

            “I’ll leave it alone for just now. If he gives you any grief, harasses you or anything, won’t leave you alone, let me know – if necessary I’ll get HR involved.”           

            Agron thought of the many text messages on his phone – one a week since Nikolas touched down in Scotland – but said nothing.

 

            “Did he abuse you?”

            “What!”

            “I’m sorry Agron, but he does occasionally cover the kids’ hospital, if he’s a danger to children we need to-“

            “What! No – no, he never” Agron shuddered “He never did anything like that. He’s... he should be OK with kids. Just not his own.”

            “OK.” Mr Fraser exhaled. Agron felt a bit bad for him. He had obviously psyched himself up to this, and to be honest, if he had any concerns it was completely appropriate for him to ask, just from a patient-safety point of view.

            “What is it, then?”

            “Huh?”          

            “Why do you hate him so much?”

            “I...” Agron stared. Mr Fraser wasn’t known as a great respecter of boundaries, but this was a bit much even for him.

            “I just...” Mr Fraser’s voice cracked. “If one of my kids turned on me like that... I can’t even imagine what that must be like.”

            “Yeah, Mr Fraser, but the thing is, this isn’t actually about you.”

            Mr Fraser’s expression darkened, and he shook his head, turning away and striding out of the doctors’ room.

 

It was bound to all come crashing down eventually. It was late at night, they had been called in to a patient who had bled after his bypass and had to take him to theatre. They got him back, but only just, and would just have to wait and see, once he woke up, how much of him had been preserved, and how much had been lost during the minutes when he had no cardiac output. Agron was waylaid by a member of theatre staff who wanted to check something with him, and Mr Fraser and Professor Oenomaeus had gone on ahead to get changed and start thinking about home and bed. Evidently there had been another emergency, and Nikolas had been called in, because he emerged from the other overnight theatre, looking grey and exhausted, just as the scrub nurse was leaving.

            “Hey Agron,” Nikolas said, leaning against the wall next to Agron. “Long day?”

            “Mmph.” Agron said, and turned to go, but he had to walk past Nikolas, and he put an arm out to stop him.

            “Come on, Agron. Talk to me.”

            “Leave me alone.”

            “No.” Nikolas grabbed Agron by the arm. “Stop doing this. Just give me a chance – talk to me, let me know what I need to do for you to -”

            “Get off me!” Agron said, whipping his arm out of Nikolas’ grip. He moved to step past him, but Nikolas swiftly sidestepped and grabbed Agron by both upper arms, holding him in place, not letting him get away.

            “Take your hands off me!” Rage and panic flared in Agron’s chest, and he put both hands in the centre of Nikolas’ chest and pushed, and Nikolas staggered backwards. In the deathly quiet of the theatre corridor after dark, the sound of him hitting the wall was deafeningly loud.

            “Agron!” Agron hadn’t even heard Professor Oenomaeus come back out of the changing room, but now he was grabbing Agron and pulling him backwards, away from Nikolas.

            “What the fuck!” Mr Fraser seemed to have melted out of the wall, his face a mask of horror.

            “Take him away.” Oenomaeus said, and Mr Fraser grabbed Agron’s arm and tugged, as Professor Oenomaeus turned to Nikolas, putting a hand out to stop him stepping past him to get to Agron.

            “Let go, I’m coming.” Agron said, as Mr Fraser towed him along the corridor, and Mr Fraser reluctantly dropped his arm and simply strode along next to him in silence.

            “What were you thinking?” he hissed, as they got to the stairs and started to make their way up.        

            “He kept grabbing at me and wouldn’t let go, so I gave him a little push – I hardly touched him!”

            “I heard him hit the wall from around the corner, Agron!” Mr Fraser shook his head. “We’re going to have to kick this up the chain – inform the Head of Surgery, if not the Hospital Director.”

            “What? Really?” Agron’s stomach tightened – a suspension he would have to declare on job applications for the rest of his working life loomed before him.

            “Oh come on, Agron, you shoved the head of anaesthetics against a wall in the main surgical corridor, they’re going to find out, and it’s better if they find out from us.”

            “Oh god.” They got to the ward, and for the first time Mr Fraser looked as if he was almost sympathetic for Agron.

            “Look, just – I know, write down everything that happened – type it up, even – as accurately as you can, and send it to Professor Oenomaeus. I’ll see if he can get your – I mean, the anaesthetist to do the same.”

            Agron turned to the computer and stared at the screen for a moment, wondering how he wanted people to refer to Nikolas. “Your dad” seemed like too much, but “the anaesthetist” seemed like too little.

 

Agron did not, it turned out, get immediately suspended. He did, however, get sentenced to a meeting with Nikolas, mediated by the Head of Surgery, at five o’clock on Monday afternoon. Agron was hangdog all day – even the fact that the patient they had gone to theatre with was awake, and miraculously had only mild cognitive impairment, couldn’t cheer him up. Oenomaeus was to accompany him, as his head of department. Nikolas, as his own head of department, would be alone.

            Nikolas, for his part, seemed to want to forget the whole thing, and kept insisting on minimising it, passing it off as a family argument. Oenomaeus kept glancing sideways at Agron, who was staring at his hands, simmering with rage.

            “Yes, Dr Bauer, you keep telling us that Agron is your son, but that doesn’t change the fact that we can’t have members of staff – even if they’re family – getting into fistfights in the hospital corridors.

            “It wasn’t a fistfight, it was just a gentle push – trust me, I know what Agron’s like-”

            Agron snorted with laughter, and looked up to find everyone around the table staring at him.

            “What is it Agron?” The Head of Surgery asked.

            “Nothing. Sorry.” Agron said, looking down again. A small pause, and the Head of Surgery spoke again.

            “What was it that led up to this shove? What was the disagreement?”

            Nikolas seemed brought up short.

            “He won’t leave me alone.” Agron said

            “I’m sorry?”

            “He keeps stopping me in the corridor, trying to talk to me. He grabbed me, wouldn’t let go, so I shoved him to get him off me.”

            “I just wanted to talk to you.”

            “Well, I don’t want to talk to you! Leave me alone!”      

            “I’m your dad, Agron.”

            “No you’re not! My dad is the guy who raised me – you’re my sperm donor!”

            There was a pause, as Oenomaeus looked resigned and the Head of Surgery blinked, visibly wishing he was somewhere else, where people didn't spontaneously bring up sperm in the middle of a conversation.

            “Dr Bauer, I think what Agron is trying to say is that while you would like the two of you to spend more time together and build a closer relationship, Agron doesn’t feel the same way and would prefer for the two of you to keep your relationship professional, at least in the hospital.”

            Nikolas looked furious – the resemblance to Agron was striking.

            “I’m sorry _Professor_ , but I’m not going to ask your permission before I talk to my own son.”

            “Don’t fucking talk to him like that!”

            “Agron, calm down.” Nikolas said. Agron sprung out of his seat, his face a mask of fury.

            “Fuck you!”

            “Agron, go outside.” Professor Oenomaeus said levelly, and Agron turned on his heel and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. There was a pause, while Professor Oenomaeus and the Head of Surgery eyed Nikolas apprehensively. He twitched his hands a couple of times, as if very deliberately not curling them into fists – just like Agron, Oenomaeus thought. Then he suddenly deflated, almost physically, seeming to shrink in his chair.  

            “I don’t know what to do with him.” he said, shaking his head. It seemed bloody obvious to Oenomaeus, but he tried to be sympathetic.

            “Dr Bauer, I can’t tell you how to be a father to your son, but I can tell you how to be a colleague to my registrar.”

            Nik looked up.

            “A colleague?” he said bitterly, and Oenomaeus almost felt bad for him. The Head of Surgery looked distinctly uncomfortable.

            “I’m afraid I have another meeting to get to, and since Agron’s gone...”

            “Don’t worry. Dr Bauer and I will just have a little chat, and then be on our way.”

            Professor Oenomaeus had actually gone to the trouble of speaking to consultants whose children were trainees or juniors in the same hospital, and asking them for advice, an action so considerate and labour-intensive that Nikolas had no choice but to listen to what he had gathered. He agreed to a couple of ground rules (treating Agron like any other trainee, avoiding singling him out when other people were around, limiting physical contact and stepping back if Agron told him to) then suddenly asked Oenomaeus

            “Do you have children, Professor?”

            Professor Oenomaeus had, over the years, developed several polite answers to that question, but for some reason chose to say

            “My wife and I would have loved to have children, but it unfortunately just never happened for us.”

            “Oh!” Nikolas looked genuinely taken aback, and Professor Oenomaeus was touched by the pain that shot across his face, only to be visibly repressed. What must it be like, he wondered, to be blessed with two children, turn your back on them and abandon them for years, only to be faced with someone who desperately wants them but can’t have any. He wondered if Nik could read his mind. If I had been blessed with a son, I wouldn’t have done whatever it was you did to Agron that made him hate you so much.


	17. Nasir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here he is! (Briefly)

Agron put his headphones in and stretched. He hadn’t been out for a proper run in ages – he’d gone out quickly before work a couple of times, for half an hour, but he hadn’t gone out for a proper run, really stretched himself, felt his lungs burn, in ages.

            He jogged down the stairs and started his running playlist, then his RunTracker app. Slipping past his neighbour in the entrance, he started running, gently at first, then speeding up and slowing down, experimenting until he settled into a good pace.

            He could always think better when he was running. He remembered clearly Emma Thomson saying “There isn’t much that can’t be clarified by a good run of about an hour and a half... which is why I remain so very much in the dark.” He smiled a little at the memory, and turned left, towards the park.

            He had been on a date the night before. He hated dating, hated the awkward getting-to-know-you bit, hated the stupid false version of yourself you always ended up doing when you were just starting to see someone. He quite liked being in a relationship, had certainly had good times with his previous serious boyfriends, but sometimes when he was with someone he missed the freedom of being single, and when he was single he missed the companionship of a relationship. Dating, though. He didn’t like anything about dating. His preference was always to go from friendship – getting to know each other in a more relaxed way – to getting drunk and shagging them, then straight to the comfortable middle stage of a relationship. Which made his unfortunate penchant for making friends with straight people that much more unfortunate. His few gay male friends from uni he had already shagged, gone out with for a while and broken up with, stayed on good terms but not good enough to stay in close contact after training or new relationships or whatever pulled them further apart.

            And if he couldn’t just shag one of his friends and get a boyfriend, at least he’d like to go out with another doctor. His date the previous night was with a guy who was an accountant, whose eyes went wide with wonder when Agron explained that he wasn’t just (“just”) a doctor, as it said on his profile, he was actually a surgeon, and not just a surgeon, but a heart surgeon. He could practically see Grey’s Anatomy scenes flashing behind the guy’s eyes. Contrary to what other doctors thought about surgeons, Agron didn’t love being worshipped, it reminded him too much of patients and their families. Pathetic though he knew it was, he actually liked being treated with a bit of disdain. And all disdain went out the window as soon as this guy found out what type of doctor he was – as it tended to do when you told someone non-healthcare what you did for a living. When they said goodbye at the end of the meal the guy had asked Agron back to his, eyes shining, everything about his look and posture and every fibre of his being screaming: take me I’m yours. Agron had demurred, gone home alone, and stared at his ceiling and wondered what the fuck was wrong with him, why this was so much harder for him than it seemed to be for other people.

            Spartacus had once told him that his problem was threefold: One, he was only attracted to guys who he thought were smarter than him. Two, he was very intelligent. Three, he was an arrogant fuck.

            Resigning himself to the fact that he might be alone for the rest of his life, Agron ran until his legs ached and his lungs burned, until his throat felt like it was closing up, and then he kept running.

 

Agron saw him standing nervously in the doctor’s room, leaning against the filing cabinets and, when one of the nurses started talking to him, looking grateful and leaning in to speak to her. He looked like he might be Middle Eastern or South Asian – mid-brown skin, and straight black hair long enough to be tied back in a ponytail. Agron didn’t think he had a particular thing for guys with long hair, but was starting to think he might. He was short, too – not much taller than Kirsty, and she barely came up to Agron’s shoulder. Agron could probably pick him up and carry him around, but he wouldn’t, because that would be inappropriate. Mr Fraser came in, and the chatter subsided.

            “OK, morning everyone, hope you had a good weekend, but not too good. Agron.”

            “Yes, I’m fine after being on call all weekend, thanks for asking.” Agron replied.

            “And still you’re here and ready to fight another day.”

            “Ready and raring to go.” Agron smiled. The new guy looked alarmed, and Mr Fraser seemed to notice him for the first time.

            “Right. First order of business, we have a new FY1 with us, Nasir Hashemi. Stand up, Nasir, let people see you. Oh, you’re already standing up.” There was a ripple of laughter, and the new guy, Nasir, joined in, but something flashed in his eyes, and Agron was suddenly madly curious as to how he would react if someone else, not his new boss, made a crack about his height.

            “So.” Mr Fraser continued. “Nasir is here to replace Leanne, who will be sadly missed.”

            Ah, Leanne. She wasn’t bad, actually, and became quite competent after her first couple of weeks of bewilderment. Leanne, though, had the misfortune of being placed in a speciality which she had, if possible, _less_ than zero interest in. In fact, she hated being in the operating theatre so much that Mr Fraser eventually took pity on her and gave all her jobs in theatre to… Agron. Not that Agron was bitter, but hopefully this guy had the psychological wherewithal to stand in theatre and hold a retractor for six hours without being a little bitch about it. Mr Fraser was still talking.

            “So, Nasir… Where are you, Nasir?”

            “I’m still standing next to you.” Nasir said in a neutral voice, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. He was from Glasgow, not the Middle East. And he had nice lips. And Agron needed to get a grip. There was a small titter from the rest of the room, and Mr Fraser smiled good naturedly. “Sorry, I just didn’t see you there.” It was Nasir’s turn to smile. Agron had the distinct impression that Mr Fraser was really enjoying being taller than someone for once. It was just dancing on the edge of being mean, and other people in the room were looking at each other, as if noticing this themselves. Mr Fraser seemed to feel bad.

            “Sorry, Nasir.” he put a hand on Nasir’s shoulder, and Agron, who wasn’t much of a one for physical contact, especially when he was feeling tense, noticed Nasir stiffen slightly. “I shouldn’t be making all these short jokes.”

            “Oh, it’s fine. They go right over my head.”

            And that was when Agron fell in love.

 

He went down to the hospital canteen to get his lunch (at three) and found a missed call from his stepdad. Frowning slightly, he tried to remember what hours Ali worked on a Monday. Morning. He’d be done by now, and fuck it, he was a proper registrar now, he could take ten minutes to call his stepdad at a reasonable hour of the day if he wanted to.

            “Agron!” As always, Ali sounded delighted to hear him. “How goes it in the land of scalpel-wielding nutters?”

            “Me and my fellow surgeons are fine.” Agron replied, smiling. “How are you and Mum?”

            “Fine, fine. I tried to ring you at lunchtime, just to see if you were still coming up this weekend?”

            “Yeah, I switched my on call to this weekend just gone.”

            “And now you’re back at work again. For how long?”

            “Oh, you know, the usual. 12 hours. Which actually means sixteen.”

            “Gosh, it’s all very uncivilised in hospital-land.”

            “Is it true that GPs get tea breaks?”

            “Not quite. But we can drink tea while doing scripts, which is close enough.”

            “Closer than I get.”

            “Aye, it is…” There was a pause. Agron should have known better than to allow a pause in a conversation with Alistair.

            “So.” he said casually. “You spoken to your dad?”

            Agron felt his hackles rise. “No.”

            “ _Agron._ ” He was doing his Reasonable Voice.

            “I don’t want to talk to him.”

            “It’s a bit ridiculous. You work in the same hospital.”

            “But we don’t work together. He isn’t a cardiac anaesthetist so he never anaesthetises for us. All I have to do is not be on the ward when he’s there to talk to Prof about staff shortages and I never see him.”

            There was a groan and a sound that could have been Alistair’s head hitting a desk or wall. Agron grinned.

            “What am I going to do with you, Agron?” Alistair said. He had said it many times before, and Agron knew that it really meant: “I love you, even though you are being a _complete_ twat.”       

            “Adopt me?” Agron said hopefully.

            “ _Talk to your dad._ ”

            Agron mock-pouted, even though his stepdad couldn’t see him. He thought about some way to change the subject.

            “Oh! I’m in love.” he said triumphantly.

            “Oh!” Ali said. He sounded a bit surprised. Agron was a bit surprised himself. He wasn’t sure he’d ever said that sentence out loud before.

“Well? With who? Tell me about him.”

            “I don’t know that much about him. He’s the new FY1 on our ward.”

            “Huh.” Ali sounded like he was thinking. “FY1-regisgrar is OK, I think.”

            “Yeah…” Agron said, frowning. “Fuck, I didn’t think of that. Is it OK?”

            “You’re not a bad guy. Don’t do anything you think might be dodgy, don’t use the fact that you’re kind of his boss to leverage a date out of him. I trust your judgement. What’s he like?”

            “He’s Muslim.” Agron remembered something Nasir had said in the meeting that morning.

            “ _Muslim!_ Agron, be careful!”

            “Of what!”

            “Religious people can be funny about… well, lots of things. Don’t pretend I’m wrong.”

            “He drinks!”

            “That doesn’t mean he’s gay! It doesn’t even make him tolerant of gay people.”

            “Well, I’m out at work now, so he’ll find out eventually.”

            “Oh God, yes. The Stethoscope Incident. Right, just don’t let him off with stuff because it’s his religion. Doesn’t matter what his god says, it’s not an excuse to treat you differently. OK?”

            “Yes, Dad.”

            “You have a dad. Who you should talk to. But anyway. Found out anything else about him?”

            “He’s from Glasgow.”

            Ali groaned. “Great. My stepson is going to get himself stabbed.”

            There was a moment of horrified silence, which Agron broke by bursting out laughing.

            “God, another one! Stepsons these days, what are we like?”

            “Agron, I – Fuck!” Ali started laughing as well. “Bloody hell. Where did that come from?”

            “I have no idea. Never change, Ali.”

            “For fuck’s sake!” Ali suddenly sounded like he might cry. “Do you ever just miss him? Not like how we all always miss him, but… worse. Like, the way you would miss your leg if it suddenly fell off. While you were running a marathon.”

            Agron couldn’t help but laugh, even as he felt a rising pressure behind his eyes, threatening tears.

            “You have a gift with words, Ali. And yes, I do.”

            “Acute-on-chronic attack of grief.”

            “See, that’s superficially much more eloquent, but it’s just not as vivid.”

            “Oh, fuck off.”

            They lapsed into silence for a moment, and didn’t acknowledge that the two of them were both trying to steady their breathing.

            “Anniversary’s coming up, isn’t it?” Agron said.

            “In six days, to be precise.”

            Agron couldn’t quite believe it. It felt like just yesterday that Duro was just at the other end of a phone call. But then, it also felt like it had been fucking _decades_ since he heard his voice, or gave him a hug, or tried to give him advice that he’d never follow, so maybe a year was about right.

            “It’s just…” Agron trailed off.

            “Yeah.” Ali understood. It was just…

            “So!” Ali said, forcibly brightening. “This Saturday?”

            “Yeah, I probably won’t get away till late on Friday, so if I travelled down afterwards I’d arrive at an unsociable hour.”

            “Not a good plan. We’ll see you on Saturday.”

            “See you then. I should go and do some work.”

            “Of course! You must have been not working for at least four minutes now, it’s just not on. Bye, Agron. See you soon.”

            “Bye.”


	18. Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The anniversary of Duro's death approaches

Nasir was smart. By God he was smart. Agron took him around the department and talked him through how the ward worked and how it differed from the medical wards he had worked on before. He wrote the odd thing down but mostly he just listened, looking up at Agron intently. Agron could almost see the cogs in his brain turning, processing the information, filtering and storing it, and was embarrassed by how sexy he found it. Nasir went pale when Agron was going through some of the worst of the post op complications that their patients got, but when Agron asked him if he could handle it, he nodded firmly and Agron believed him. Agron wanted to stay and make small talk, but he was late for clinic and Nasir had a long list of jobs to do, so they parted ways. When Agron returned to the ward, Nasir was noticeably less flustered than most juniors on their first day on a new ward, and efficiently clarified a few issues with Agron before getting back to work. He was calm but hard working and confident without being bolshy, and he had already learned the names of half a dozen of the nurses. On top of being in love, Agron felt the sense of peace that comes with having a competent, trustworthy junior.

            The anniversary of Duro’s death was on Saturday. Agron was a little surprised, but not miffed – he wasn’t – that Nikolas hadn’t been in touch. Then on Thursday he was standing in the doctor’s room when he got a text. He sighed on seeing who it was from.

            _Hi Agron. I’m not sure if I’m meant to text you at work, but what the hell. Obviously the anniversary’s coming up on Saturday, and I was wondering if you wanted to meet up. I just want to talk about Duro with someone._

            Feeling a twinge of guilt, Agron replied to a text from Nikolas for the first time.

            _I’m going to mum’s_

            The reply only took a moment to arrive. 

            _Of course, I should have realised. Phone me any time you want to talk, I mean it. This is a tough time._

            Agron actually growled, and gripped his phone so hard he almost snapped it in half. He couldn’t really justify to himself why the message made him so angry – if he’d taken time to think about it he probably would have said it was something to do with the oleaginous “phone me any time, I mean it” and the patronising tone you could (if you really tried) read into the obvious statement that the anniversary of a brother and son’s death would be a tough time.

            “Are you OK?” Nasir asked, looking around at Agron and raising an eyebrow. Unlike his predecessor, he wasn’t remotely intimidated by Agron, and simply rolled his eyes when he was being grumpy. It was hot.

            “Fine.”

            “Really? Because that’s an expensive phone to be using as a stress ball.”

            Agron put the phone in his pocket and fidgeted.

            “It’s nothing. Just a text from my dad.”

            Nasir looked at him consideringly, and Agron knew he was wondering whether or not to clarify the rumour he had heard that Agron’s dad was the head of Anaesthetics.

            “Yes, the anaesthetist.”

            Nasir half-laughed, and Agron was instantly calm.

            “Do you get on with your dad?” he asked, and Nasir blinked. Agron wondered if he had asked too much, pried into something he ought not to have.

            “Yeah. We get on. But he doesn’t know I’m gay.”

            Agron managed not to fist pump. He tried to nod understandingly.

            “Was your dad OK about it when.. when he found out?” Nasir asked. Agron's sexuality was common knowledge in the hospital, following a confrontation with an Orthopaedic Surgeon known only as The Stethoscope Incident.

            “Not... completely.” Agron replied. This was true, technically, though if he was really honest he would also tell Nasir that his dad had repented and apologised on several occasions for his reaction. He didn’t want to think about why he didn’t. Because he wanted a discrete, easily understood explanation for why they didn’t get on, because he didn’t want to explain how his father had bailed on him when he was nine, and he was still angry, because he didn’t want to make himself vulnerable to getting hurt again. Because he wanted Nasir to think they had something in common, something to forge a connection on.

            “I’m sorry.” Nasir said, and Agron felt vaguely guilty for making him sorry, for not telling him the whole story.           

            “It’s fine.” He said, and Nasir tipped his head to one side, considering, for a moment, before he turned back to his work.

            The pit of Agron’s stomach was all tingly.

 

Agron was meant to be in late on Friday evening, but Prof must have realised that it was the anniversary the following day, because he told Agron that he would close the last case, and urged him to get a head start down to his mum’s house. After a certain amount of token resistance, Agron gratefully escaped. He changed as quickly as he could and checked the time as he was leaving out of the side door. After five. He would definitely get stuck in traffic, and it would probably add an hour onto his journey, but he could get to his mum and Ali’s before bedtime. He looked at the case of his phone – it was an old one, and the phone kept slightly slipping out. He tugged on the corner of it, trying to see why it was doing that. Maybe he had done something to it when he was using it as a stress ball yesterday-

            He tripped halfway out the door and watched as, in slow motion, his phone slid out of its case, landed on the concrete and bounced, bits of screen and casing scattering. The phone case flopped, useless, a foot away.

            Agron stood just outside the door, staring at the remains of his phone, until someone collided with his back.

            “Whoa, what – Agron?”

            It was Nasir. Of course it was Nasir.

            “I broke my phone.” Agron said stupidly. Nasir peered past him and saw the bits of phone on the ground.

            “Why’d you take it out of the case?”

            “It kept slipping out. I was fiddling it, trying to see if I did something to it when I was using it as a stress ball.”

            Nasir snorted with laughter, and Agron smiled.

            “My brother died today.” he said conversationally. Nasir’s eyes widened in consternation, and Agron hastily corrected himself.

            “A year ago – well, a year ago tomorrow, it was after midnight when... but I hadn’t been to bed yet, so it felt like – it feels like today.”

            Nasir squinted up at him, the wind whipping his hair across his face.

            “Anniversaries suck.” he said unexpectedly. “They never stop sucking. But it does get easier. Someday you’ll remember something good about them and not immediately feel sad that they’re dead.”

            Agron nodded, and said nothing. Nasir hopped up on the railing and studied Agron as best he could with Agron contemplating the ground.         

            “Want to talk about it?” he asked. Agron shook his head.

            “Want to talk about something else? Agron nodded, and looked up expectantly. Nasir started talking about something funny one of the nurses had said, and started rambling, and Agron listened to him natter and watched his hair blowing in the wind. It was black – really black, and it shone blue when the sunlight caught in it. He smiled, and Nasir paused.

            “You OK?” he asked.

            “I need to phone my mum, tell her I’ll be down this evening and not tomorrow.”

            “Want to borrow my phone?” Nasir was already holding it out. Agron reached out and took it, looking down at the keypad, considering.

            “Can you actually remember any phone numbers?” Nasir asked sympathetically.

            “I can remember my mum’s home phone number. You know, from the days before mobiles.” Agron smiled at Nasir, gently mocking.

            “I remember the days before mobiles too, you’re not that special.”

            “Really?”

            “I was a late adopter. I can remember my parents’ landline too. They taught us to repeat it like parrots in case we ever got lost.” Something flickered across Nasir’s face, but Agron’s mum’s phone was already ringing so he didn’t enquire about it beyond a faint, concerned frown.

            “Hello? Who’s this?”          

            “Ali? It’s Agron.”

            “Agron! Sorry, I didn’t recognise the number.”

            “It’s not mine – I dropped my phone, someone kindly lent me theirs to ring you. I got away early, so I’ll see you tonight at about nine, if that’s OK?”

            “Yes, absolutely! We would love to see you Agron. We’ll look forward to it.”

            “Great. I’d better get going.”

            “Yes, yes, see you tonight.”

            “See you.”

            Agron hung up, holding the phone out to Nasir.

            “Cheers.”

            “No bother.” Nasir was looking searchingly at Agron, or he might have just been squinting because his hair was in his face again. “You OK?”

            “I’ll be fine.” Agron took half a step back, shoving his hands reflexively into his pockets. “Thanks for – the phone. I’ll...” he trailed off on turning around and finding the remains of his phone on the ground. “I should tidy this up, shouldn’t I?”

            “Let me help.”

            The wreckage cleared, they went their separate ways, and Agron paused and turned to watch Nasir go, his backpack shifting as he readjusted it on his shoulders, his hair blowing blue-black in the wind.


	19. Pacemaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agron has his pacemaker changed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we even start:
> 
> This chapter is potentially distressing - skip to notes at the end if you need more details about any of the tags
> 
> I am not a doctor, I am not even slightly medically trained, please do not take any of this as medical advice
> 
> Pacemaker changes are really, really safe, I had to really stretch the limits of medical credulity here. If you or anyone you know has to get a pacemaker, don't let this story worry you, and talk to your doctor about any concerns you have about any procedure you get.

It was past time for Agron to get his pacemaker changed. He’d got his first one at seventeen, and had it changed every few years since then without issue, but he still felt a little thrill of fear every time he had to get it changed again. He and Nasir were sitting in the doctors’ room, Nasir working, Agron messing about on his phone, when it occurred to Agron to mention it.

            “I’ll only be in for the ward round tomorrow by the way, I’m going to get my pacemaker changed.”

            Nasir’s head jerked up and he stared at Agron wide-eyed.

            “Oh?”

            “I have congenital heart block. It’s not a big deal.” Agron said, elaborately casual.

            “Oh.” Nasir blushed. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

            “No worries.”

            At that point Mr Fraser wandered into the room, looking intently at his phone, and walked into Agron’s chair.

            “Mr F, you know you’re doing Prof’s list with him tomorrow because I’m not around?”

            “Hm?” Mr Fraser at last looked up. “Tomorrow... oh yes! I remember. What are you up to again?” He went back to his phone.

            “Pacemaker change.”

            “Is that so? Who’s doing it?

            “Dr Jayasuriya.”

            Mr Fraser stopped short, and lowered his phone to his side as he turned to look at Agron.

            “Oh! Really?”

            “That’s his wife.” Agron stage-whispered to Nasir, who raised his eyebrows.

            “Is that... allowed?”

            “Yeah, it’s fine. I like her – she’s quick. I might make it back up to the ward afterwards, do some work.”

            Nasir frowned.

            “I’ll be fine,” Agron said “You’ll see.”

 

            “Morning, Agron,” Dr Jayasuriya said, hurrying into the room looking harried.

            “Morning.” Agron replied, taking his top off. Dr Jayasuriya turned back to him and jumped slightly.

            “Sorry, should I...” Agron, suddenly acutely aware that Gayani, as well as being his cardiologist, was also his boss’s wife, reached for his T shirt.

            “No, no – we’ll be taking you through in a few minutes anyway. Just need you to sign the consent. You could probably read the risks back to me, couldn’t you – Infection, bleeding, pneumothorax, and there’s always the _chance_ I’ll jab the wrong bit of your heart and give you a life-threatening arrhythmia, but I’ll try not to. Neil’d kill me if I killed his registrar.

            “And then where are we, one consultant cardiologist and one cardiothoracic surgery reg down?” Agron asked. He felt great. The pre-med was already starting to take effect.

            “Where do I sign?”

            “Same place as always, Agron.”

            “Not really - I usually sign the surgeon bit, not the patient bit.”

            Agron squinted slightly and signed his name, then lay back on the gurney and closed his eyes, grinning slightly.

            “So we just need to give you your pre-med-“

            “Already done.”

            “Ah.” Agron was dimly aware of her hesitating, before she righted herself and simply said “I’ll see you in a minute, Agron,” and swung through the double doors into the cath lab.

 

            “So we have Agron Bauer...”

            “Hello!” Agron said, as he always did, and Mickey the lab tech laughed, as he always did, and continued with the ID check.

            “Consented for replacement of pacemaker, dated this morning... and we’re good to go.”

            “How you feeling, Agron?” Dr Jayasuriya asked.

            “Great,” Agron grinned.

            “All right, I’ll just draw up the local anaesthetic...”

 

Unseen by Agron, a tall man with greying light-brown hair slipped into the monitoring room, on the other side of the two-way mirror. The physiologist at the screen glanced up at him briefly before returning to his screen.

            “Nick Bauer, I’m one of the new anaesthetists.”

            “Oh, right.” The physiologist nodded absently and continued adjusting his screen for a moment before straightening up and turning back to Nick.

            “Did you say Bauer?”

            “He’s my son. My oldest. Well. My younger son died last year, so he’s my only son now.”

            The physiologist stared at him for a moment.

            “I’ll not let Gayani know you’re here.” he mumbled, and Nick nodded, leaning against the door and watching intently through the glass as his last living son had his chest cut open.

 

            Agron could hear the chatter above him as Dr Jayasuriya and Mickey conferred about the procedure, but the sound washed over him like waves breaking on a tropical beach. He hadn’t been on holiday in ages – he needed to get away. He could have opened his eyes, but the lights above him were too bright. Then, suddenly, the sound of voices receded, and the pink of the light filtering through his eyelids faded to black.

 

            “VF.” Dr Jayasuriya said. Then, louder, when this got no response. “VF!”

            “Fuck!” Mickey put his fist down on Agron’s sternum and pushed, hard. “Agron, can you hear me? Agron?”

            The physiologist burst through the door at the same time as Nick, and grabbed the emergency trolley.

            “Get me defib pads, now!” Gayani said, slightly shakily, and Mickey started pulling the sterile drapes off of Agron’s chest.

            Dr Jayasuriya threw the defib pads to Mickey and began pressing buttons on the defibrillator.

            “Are we all stuck on?”

            “Yep.”

            “OK, rhythm check.” Dr Jayasuriya looked at the tracing on the defib, then at the telemetry screen. “Still VF. Everyone step back.”

            Mickey took two steps back and folded his arms. Dr Jayasuriya took her hand off Agron’s arm and pressed the “Shock” button on the defibrillator.

            Agron’s body arced up off the bed with the force of the shock, but he didn’t rouse, and a glance at the monitor confirmed that the rhythm hadn’t changed.

            “Mickey, start chest compressions.”

            Mickey locked his hands together and started compressing Agron’s chest.

            “Call the crash team, we need an anaesthetist to secure the airway.”

            “I’m an anaesthetist.” Nick stepped forward. Dr Jayasuriya blinked.

            “That’s handy. Get up to the head, I’ll pass you the bag and mask, we’ll do a couple of breaths before the rhythm check.”

            “That’s his dad!” the physiologist whispered urgently, and Gayani stared at him as if he had grown an extra head.

            “What?”         

            “That anaesthetist is Agron’s dad!”

            “Oh! Well, he’ll have to do for now, put out the call for another one.”

            “28, 29, 30”

            “Breaths!”

            Holding Agron’s jaw with one hand and lifting his face up into the mask, Nick compressed the bag with the other hand, and watched as Agron’s chest rose and fell as air was forced in.

            “Rhythm check.” Dr Jayasuriya looked at the monitor. “That’s VF. Back on the chest. Oxygen stand back while I charge.”

            Mickey returned to compressing Agron’s chest.

            “Allright, off the chest. Everyone standing back?”

            “Yep.”

            Dr Jayasuriya pressed the shock button, and again Agron arced off the table, but this time he groaned and screwed up his eyes.

            “Rhythm – sinus. Right, call CCU for transfer.” Dr Jayasuriya’s face was drawn and pinched, as if she was on the verge of tears.

            “What happened?” Agron groaned, one hand coming up to his chest.

            “You had an arrhythmia during the procedure, so we had to abandon it. I’m just going to stitch up your incision, and we’ll get you up to CCU, OK?

            “K.” Agron mumbled.

            With shaking hands, Dr Jayasuriya changed her gloves and asked for a suture needle. Agron closed his eyes and seemed to drift off again.

            Nick had backed off when Dr Jayasuriya yelled: “Clear!” and was now sandwiched between a cupboard and the monitoring stack. He looked down at the oxygen mask in his left hand, then at his right, at the hand that he had used to hold Agron’s face. It was tingling. It must be the first time he had touched Agron in – five years? Agron had stepped back, aggressively avoided physical contact at Duro’s memorial, and the last time they had seen each other before that had been at Duro’s disastrous graduation dinner, the one Nick had been asked to leave early.

            Dr Jayasuriya finished suturing and dropped the needle into the kidney bowl – she was out the door by the time she had her gloves off. Slowly, hesitantly, Nick stepped forward. Agron shifted slightly and sighed in his sleep, and it suddenly reminded Nick unbearably of when Agron was little, before Nick and Linda got divorced, when Nick would come home from work after Agron was asleep, and he would tiptoe into his room and just watch him sleep for a few minutes, just so he knew he hadn’t gone a whole day without setting eyes on his son.

            “Agron?” he whispered, and Agron continued breathing evenly. Nick glanced up at the assistant, still on the phone to CCU at the other side of the room, and leaned over Agron slightly, laying a hand gently on his shoulder. “Agron. Wake up.”

            Agron’s eyes flickered and opened, and he looked up blearily at Nick. Then all of a sudden his eyes sharpened in anger.

            “Whaddefuck are you doing here? Geddout!”

            “Agron, please-“

            “Fuck off!” Agron tried to sit up, and the assistant hurried over and tried to get Agron to lie down.        

            “What is it, what’s happened?” the man asked, turning rapidly from Agron to Nick.

            “Go _away_!” Agron snarled over the man’s shoulder at Nick, and for a moment sounded just like the fourteen year old who had told Nick to fuck off and not bother any more if he really didn’t give a shit about his kids.

            “I’m sorry, I’ll – I’ll go.” Nick said, holding up his hands and backing towards the door.

            The physiologist was staring very intently at his computer screen when Nick made it back into his little room, but his ears were bright red, and Nick thought he must have seen the whole palaver. In fairness, it would have been hard not to. Nick took a couple of deep breaths, sniffed hard, and wiped briskly at his eyes with the heel of his hand before he went out of the external door into the corridor.

 

            “I want to speak to Dr Jayasuriya.” Agron demanded, and the nurse attaching his monitoring leads sighed.

            “She’s very tied up at the moment. You know yourself how much paperwork it creates when a patient has an arrest on the table.”

            “Ha ha. I don’t need to stay overnight.”

            “You. Had. A. Cardiac. Arrest.”

            “I’m not staying. Give me the form, I’ll sign it, we can all get on with our lives.”

            “No. Just sit tight, I’ll get Dr Jayasuriya to come and speak to you as soon as I can.”

            “Untie me, woman!”

            The nurse straightened up and admired her handiwork. Agron had a variety of leads leading from his chest to the heart monitor at his bedside, and he was scowling. He went to fold his arms, but the nurse sternly grabbed his arm.

            “Don’t. You’ll dislodge your monitoring.”

            Agron made a frustrated noise and thumped his fists on the mattress on either side of him. The nurse struggled not to laugh.

            “So this is the part where we would normally inform your next of kin, but I hear your father was actually there...”

            “I don’t speak to him,” Agron interrupted, and almost rolled his eyes at the way the nurse’s eyes lit up at the promise of gossip. “My mum’s my next of kin, I’ll ring her myself.”

            “Fine.”

            “Fine.”

            The nurse turned to go, then hesitated.

            “We wouldn’t normally tell patients’ bosses about something like this, obviously, but would you like us to give Professor Oenomaeus a call?”

            Agron thought for a second, his phone already in his hand.

            “Yeah, give him a shout. I’ll be on the phone for ages with my mum.”

           

Professor Oenomaeus walked into the doctors’ room on the cardiothoracic ward looking unusually twitchy. Nasir looked up out the corner of his eye, then turned in his chair as the Prof first stalked over to the noticeboard, then turned on his heel and walked over to the coffee maker, then turned again and walked to the centre of the room, where he stood and looked distracted.

            “Professor?” Nasir said cautiously.

            “Hi Nasir,” Professor Oenomaeus said distractedly. “Anyone else around?”

            “Just me at the moment,” Nasir said. “Anything I can do to help?”

            “No, no, it’s just...” Professor Oenomaeus looked down at him. “Agron’s not well.”

            “Not well?” Nasir fought down panic. Serious complications from pacemaker changes were rare, and Agron was young and fit, but still...

            “He had a VF arrest – he’s fine!” Professor Oenomaeus said hastily, as Nasir leapt out of his chair, the blood draining from his face “They shocked him and got him back – he can’t have been gone more than ten seconds they said. Apparently he’s sat up in bed in CCU, aggravating the nurses, so he must be back to his old self – where are you going?”

            “CCU!” Nasir called back over his shoulder, and Professor Oenomaeus blinked.

            “Give him my best!” he called, but Nasir was already in the stairwell, having sprinted along the corridor in record time.

 

Agron was just off the phone with his mother, grumpily contemplating the prospect of her coming up to look after him, when Nasir appeared, slightly out of breath, in the doorway of his room.

            “Agron!” he exclaimed, and bolted over to the bed, flinging his arms around Agron who, slightly bemused but also gratified to have Nasir throw himself at him, raised his arms slightly to return the embrace.

            “What’s this in aid of?” he asked, with a laugh, as if he hadn’t briefly died an hour earlier.

            “I thought you _died_!” Nasir exclaimed, pulling back from Agron so Agron could fully appreciate how huge Nasir’s eyes looked in his face. “Prof said you arrested – I – “

            There was a small pause.

            “You ain’t getting rid of me that easily.” Agron joked, lightly punching Nasir on the arm. “If I’m not around, who’s going to give you shit about your terrible taste in films?”

            Nasir stared at him.

            “Fast and Furious 7 is a cinematic masterpiece.” he said, dead seriously, and Agron rolled his eyes.

 

            “Neil?” Dr Jayasuriya knocked and opened the door without waiting for a response. Mr Fraser blinked and turned round, frowning in surprise at the unexpected sight of his wife in his office in SurgTower.

            “Gaya! Come in, come in” He pulled the other seat out from under his table and indicated that she should sit. “What brings you here – I thought you had a pacemaker list...” he trailed off, noticing his wife’s red-rimmed eyes for the first time. “Sweetie, have you been crying?”

            Dr Jayasuriya nodded and sniffed. “It was – it’s Agron, he’s in CCU.”

            Mr Fraser went grey, and Dr Jayasuriya hastily added:

            “He’s OK! I think. He – he went into VF, we shocked him, he came back. I got a phone call from one of the nurses, apparently he’s doing fine, wants to go home, wants...” She looked down at her hands twisting in her lap. “He wants to talk to me.”

            Mr Fraser looked at her searchingly.

            “You haven’t talked to him yet?”

            “I couldn’t – I wanted to get ahold of myself first,” she sniffed, and Neil reached out and grabbed her hand.

            “Hey – hey, it’s all right, he’s OK! Look, these things happen, don’t they – not often, but they happen. I’m sure he won’t be angry – he’s a surgeon, he understands...”

            “It’s not him - I know he won’t be angry, it’s me – I’m angry at myself.” She shook her head. “I just – they say you shouldn’t treat people you know outside of work, but Agron knows _all_ the cardiologists, someone had to step up. But... if it had been anyone else, I could have carried on, done the rest of my list. I had to hand off to Rene because I was so upset. But it’s different. When you see a patient on the table in arrest, you can deal with it, but it was _Agron_. I just-“ she shook her head. “I don’t know what I mean.”

            “It’s OK.” her husband squeezed her hand. “Look. Just go and talk to him. Explain what happened. He might be Agron, but he’s still a patient. He’s probably scared, even if he won’t admit it. He needs his doctor.”

            Gayani sighed.

            “Apparently he’s asking to go home. He definitely needs to stay in and be monitored overnight – I could normally talk a patient into staying, but doctors make the worst patients. I’m a bit worried he’s gonna talk me into letting him go.”

            “You’ve just got to show him who’s boss.” Neil said, straightening up. “And tell him if he doesn’t do what he’s told, he’ll be doing nothing but vein salvages for the next six months.”

            Gayani rolled her eyes and took her husband’s proffered hand.

 

            “I should probably get going.” Nasir said reluctantly, looking at the clock. “I’m actually meant to be doing work right now.”

            Agron looked at the clock

            “I guess.” he sighed, and grinned at Nasir. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

            “OK.” Nasir straightened up, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turned, and jumped at the sight of one of the consultant cardiologists standing in the doorway.

            “Gayani!” Agron said delightedly, then corrected himself. “Sorry. Dr Jayasuriya.”

            “No worries.” Dr Jayasuriya smiled, stepping aside to let Nasir out. Nasir glanced back over his shoulder as he left, and Agron shot him a quick smile.

            “He’s the junior doctor on Cardiothoracics.” Agron explained, and Dr Jayasuriya turned and looked the way Nasir had gone.     

            “Oh! That’s Nasir! Neil told me about him.” She smiled at Agron, who squirmed slightly. Her smile faded and she crossed the room to sit on the side of Agron’s bed.

            “How are you feeling?”

            “Ready to go home.”

            “You need to stay overnight.”

            “I’ll be fine!”

            “Probably. But if you’re not, you’re better off being not-fine in here than at home by yourself.”

            “I won’t be by myself, my mum’s coming up this afternoon.”

            “Do you think your mum’ll be OK with you going home after we told you not to?”

            “I’m an adult, and a cardiac surgeon, and I know what I’m doing, you can’t keep me here against my will. I’m fully informed of the risks, and I want to go home.”

            Dr Jayasuriya narrowed her eyes at him, and changed tactics.

            “How’s your mum doing these days?”

            Agron scowled.

            “Fine.”

            “Neil told me about what happened to your brother, that must be really hard.”

            “Yes.”

            “It must have been hard for your mum too.”

            “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

            “Agron, I’m not trying to blackmail you, I just want to make sure you’ve really thought of this, about what it would mean – not just for you, but for other people, like your mum, if something did happen to you. What if you’re at home with your mum and you go into an arrhythmia? What would that be like for her? What if you go home and everything’s absolutely fine, but your mum spends the night sitting over you with her fingers crossed waiting for something to happen? Is that fair?”

            Tears were rolling down Agron’s cheeks, and he wiped them away angrily.

            “I’ll stay.” he whispered, and Dr Jayasuriya nodded, touching his hand lightly before standing up. She started towards the door, but then turned back around.

            “I’m sorry Agron.” Agron looked genuinely surprised.

            “Don’t be. These things happen. Sometimes you do everything right and it still goes tits up.”

            “We’re going to have a meeting about it. See if there’s anything we could have done differently.”

            “Whatever.”

            Dr Jayasuriya smiled as best she could at Agron and left.

 

Agron had been worried that the beeping of the monitor would keep him awake all night, but eight o’clock found him dozing. Nikolas didn’t speak to anyone on entering the ward, didn’t announce his presence, and found Agron’s bed easily just by walking around an craning his neck. He stopped at the threshold, and just watched for a long minute as Agron slept peacefully. Then he turned and walked away without a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a scene where a medical procedure goes wrong and the patient suffers a cardiac arrest but is quickly resuscitated
> 
> CCU stands for Coronary Care Unit, if anyone's interested. I understand that it's where someone who had just had a dangerous arrhythmia would go for intensive monitoring.
> 
> I researched this chapter as carefully as I could - mostly by looking up patient information online "what to expect when you get your pacemaker changed" etc, and also reading up about how dangerous arrhythmias are managed, but most of the details are completely made up
> 
> Anyone who has family or friends who work in healthcare has probably heard the rant about how you "don't shock flatlines" like they do on TV. Ventricular fibrillation (usually referred to as VF in the pages I looked up for research) is a "shockable rhythm" meaning it's a heart rhythm which doesn't let the heart contract properly and pump blood around the body, and it might return to normal with an electric shock. I have no idea if getting a shock actually makes people jump off the bed, but I decided to go with it
> 
> As well as putting people to sleep, anaesthetists are also experts at looking after airways, and a lot of the pages I looked up about managing cardiac arrest mentioned something about calling an anaesthetist, which was handy for the story.
> 
> Doctors aren't supposed to treat people they know, but there are two big exceptions (apparently)  
> 1\. A doctor can treat someone they know in an absolute emergency, but should call someone else to take their place ASAP  
> 2\. Doctors often socialise together so sometimes the situation arises where a doctor who is sick knows all the doctors in the department they need to be treated by. They have the option of going to a different hospital or travelling to a different city, but most apparently don't take it (I cannot verify this)
> 
> Basically this was a lot of stress for a callback to the classic "you will not so easily see me from your arms" line


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